If ever Pitty were acquainted
With sterne Death; if e're he fainted,
Or forgot the cruell vigour
Of an adamantine rigour;
Here, O, here we should have knowne it,
Here, or no where, hee'd have showne it.
For hee, whose pretious memory
Bathes in teares of every eye;
Hee, to whom our Sorrow brings
All the streames of all her springs;
Was so rich in grace, and nature,
In all the gifts that blesse a creature;
The fresh hopes of his lovely youth
Flourish't in so faire a growth;
So sweet the temple was, that shrin'd
The sacred sweetnesse of his mind;
That could the Fates know to relent,
Could they know what mercy meant,
Or had ever learnt to beare
The soft tincture of a teare;
Teares would now have flow'd so deepe,
As might have taught Griefe how to weepe.
Now all their steely operation
Would quite have lost the cruell fashion.
Sicknesse would have gladly been
Sick himselfe to have sav'd him;
And his feaver wish'd to prove,
Burning onely in his love.
Him when Wrath it selfe had seen,
Wrath it selfe had lost his spleen.
Grim Destruction here amaz'd,
In stead of striking, would have gaz'd.
Even the iron-pointed pen,
That notes the tragick doomes of men,
Wet with teares, 'still'd from the eyes
Of the flinty Destinies,
Would have learn't a softer style,
And have been asham'd to spoyle
His live's sweet story, by the hast
Of a cruell stop, ill plac't.
In the darke volume of our fate,
Whence each lease of life hath date,
Where in sad particulars
The totall summe of man appeares,
And the short clause of mortall breath,
Bound in the period of Death:
In all the booke if any where
Such a tearme as this, 'Spare here,'
Could been found, 'twould have been read,
Writ in white letters o're his head:
Or close unto his name annext,
The faire glosse of a fairer text.
In briefe, if any one were free
Hee was that one, and onely hee.
But he, alas! even hee is dead,
And our hope's faire harvest spread
In the dust. Pitty, now spend
All the teares that Griefe can lend.
Sad Mortality may hide
In his ashes all her pride;
With this inscription o're his head,
'All hope of never dying here is dead.'