HORE LYRICÆ. BOOK III. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD. AN EPITAPH ON KING WILLIAM III. BENEATH OF GLORIOUS MEMORY, Who died March the 8th, 1701. these honours of a tomb, Greatness in humble ruin lies: (How earth confines in narrow room Preserve, O venerable pile, Ye gentlest ministers of Fate, Rest his dear sword beneath his head, Ye sister arts of Paint and Verse, High o'er the grave Religion set Fair Liberty, in sables drest, Sweet Peace his sacred relics keep, Stand on the pile, immortal Fame, Night and the Grave, remove your gloom, Glory with all her lamps shall burn, ON THE SUDDEN DEATH OF MRS. MARY PEACOCK. AN ELEGIAC SONG, SENT IN A LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO MR. N. P. MERCHANT, AT AMSTERDAM. HARK! She bids all her friends adieu; Farewell, bright soul, a short farewell! In the sweet groves where pleasures dwell, There glory sits on every face; O'er all the names of Christ our King Come, sovereign Lord, dear Saviour, come, How long must we lie lingering here, While the dear dust she leaves behind EPITAPHIUM VIRI VENERABILIS DOM. N. MATHER, CARMINE LAPIDARIO CONSCRIPTUM. M. S. Reverendi admodum Viri NATHANAELIS MATHERI QUOD mori potuit hic subtus depositum est. Si quæris, hospes, quantus et qualis fuit, Fidus enarrabit lapis. Nomen à familiâ duxit Sanctioribus studiis et evangelio devotâ, Et per utramque Angliam celebri, Americanam sc. atque Europæam. Et hinc quoque in sancti ministerii spem eductus Non fallacem : Et hunc utraque novit Anglia Doctum et docentem. Corpore fuit procero, formâ placidè verendâ ; At supra corpus et formam sublimè eminuerunt Indoles, ingenium, atque eruditio: Supra hæc pietas, et (si fas dicere) Supra pietatem modestia, Gratiam Jesu Christi salutiferam Flosculos rhetorices supervacaneos fecit Ab inferorum portis toties reportatæ. Solers ille ferreis impiorum animis infigere Altum et salutare vulnus: Vulneratas idem tractare leniter solers, Et medelam adhibere magis salutarem. Ex defæcato cordis fonte Divinis eloquiis affatim scatebant labia, Etiam in familiari contubernio: Spirabat ipse undique cœlestes suavitates, Quasi oleo lætitiæ semper recèns delibutus, Et semper supra socios; Gratumque dilectissimi sui Jesu odorem Quaquaversùs et latè diffudit. Dolores tolerans supra fidem, Erumnæque heu quam assiduæ ! Invicto animo, victrice patientiâ Varias curarum moles pertulit Et in stadio et in metâ vitæ: Quam ubi propinquam vidit Plerophoriâ fidei quasi curru alato vectus Properè et exultim attigit. Natus est in agro Lancastriensi 20° Martii, 1630. Corpore solutus 26o Julii, 1697. Etat. 67. ΤΟ THE REV. MR. JOHN SHOWER, ON THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER, REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, How great soever was my sense of your loss, yet I did not think myself fit to offer any lines of comfort: your own meditations can furnish you with many a delightful truth in the midst of so heavy a sorrow; for the covenant of grace has brightness enough in it to gild the most gloomy providence ; and to that sweet covenant your soul is no stranger. My own thoughts were much impressed with the tidings of your daughter's death; and though I made many a reflection on the vanity of mankind in its best estate, yet I must acknowledge that my temper leads me most to the pleasant scenes of Heaven, and that future world of blessedness. When I recollect the memory of my friends that are dead, I frequently rove into the world of spirits, and search them out there. Thus I endeavoured to trace Mrs. Warner; and these thoughts crowding fast upon me, I set them down for my own entertainment. The verse breaks off abruptly, because I had no design to write a finished elegy; and besides, when I was fallen upon the dark side of death, I had no mind to tarry there. If the lines I have written be so happy as to entertain you a little, and divert your grief, the time spent in composing them shall not be reckoned among my lost hours, and the review will be more pleasing to, sir, your affectionate humble servant, I. W. December 22, 1707. AN ELEGIAC THOUGHT ON MRS. ANNE WARNER, WHO DIED OF THE SMALL-POX, DECEMBER 18, 1707, AT ONE OF THE CLOCK IN THE MORNING; A FEW DAYS AFTER THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF HER FIRST CHILD. AWAKE, my Muse, range the wide world of souls, The midnight watch of angels, that patrole The British sky, have notic'd her ascent Near the meridian star; pursue the track To the bright confines of immortal Day And Paradise, her home. Say, my Urania, Nor set with meaner gems. But vain ambition, (For nothing 'scapes thy search, nor canst thou miss Circle in love. O stamp upon my soul So fair a spirit) say, beneath what shade Those deadly snares when youth and Satan leagu'd (Snares set to murder souls); but Heaven secur'd The favourite nymph, and taught her victory. Or does she seek, or has she found her babe Behold her ancestors (a pious race) Some blissful image of the fair deceas'd, From the dear breathless clay; distressing sight! I look and mourn and gaze with greedy view Was this the countenance, where the world ad- ON How long, alas, how long!" (Then calls her mate) THE DEATH OF AN AGED AND HONOURED "Die, thou dear partner of my mortal cares, Die, and partake my bliss; we are for ever one." Ah me! where roves my fancy! What kind Crowd with sweet violence on my waking mind! To recollect her dissipated powers, And call her thoughts her own? so lately freed From Earth's vain scenes, gay visits, gratulations, From Hymen's hurrying and tumultuous joys, And fears and pangs, fierce pangs that wrought her death. Tell me on what sublimer theme she dwells Or lies she now before th' eternal throne RELATIVE, MRS. M. W. JULY 13, 1693. I KNOW the kindred-mind. 'Tis she, 'tis she; The kindred-mind from fleshly bondage free; Life on this side, there the dead, Long did the earthy house restrain A tedious train of fourscore years, She felt her fetters loose, and mounted to her rest. Gaze on, my soul, and let a perfect view Rase out those melancholy shapes of woe With youthful green, and spotless white; Provide no glooms to form a shade; Describe the saint from head to feet, Filling a chair of high degree; Observe how near it stands to the Almighty seat. And makes the work complete. The painter-Muse with glancing eye That Death had long disjoin'd: Since he was seen on Earth no more: He fought in lower seas and drown'd; But victory and peace are found On the superior shore. There now his tuneful breath in sacred songs [his feet. And bring their laurels to his hand, or lay them at 'Tis done. What beams of glory fall (Rich varnish of immortal art) To gild the bright original! 'Tis done. The Muse has now perform'd her Bring down the piece, Urania, from above, And let my honour and my love ed after more of art in the following composition, to supply the defect of nature, and to feign a sorrow; but the uncommon condescension of his friendship to me, the inward esteem I pay his memory, and the vast and tender sense I have of the loss, make all the methods of art needless, whilst natural grief supplies more than all. I had resolved indeed to lament in sighs and silence, and frequently checked the too forward Muse: but the importunity was not to be resisted; long lines of sorrow flowed in upon me ere I was aware, whilst I took many a solitary walk in the garden adjoining to his seat at Newington; nor could I free myself from the crowd of melancholy ideas. Your ladyship will find throughout the poem, that the fair and unfinished building which he had just raised for himself, gave almost all the turns of mourning to my thoughts; for I pursue no other topics of elegy than what my passion and my senses lead me to. The poem roves, as my eyes and grief did, from one part of the fabric to the other. It rises from the foundation, salutes the walls, the doors, and the windows, drops a tear upon the roof, and climbs the turret, that pleasant retreat, where I promised myself many sweet hours of his conversation: there my song wanders amongst the delightful subjects divine and moral, which used to entertain our happy leisure; and thence descending to the fields and the shady walks, where I so often enjoyed his pleasing discourse, my sorrows diffuse themselves there without a limit. I had quite forgotten all scheme and method of writing, till I correct myself, and rise to the turret again to lament that desolate seat. Now if the critics laugh at the folly of the Muse for taking too much notice of the golden ball, let them consider that the meanest thing that belonged to so valuable a person still gave some fresh and doleful reflections: and I transcribe nature without rule, and represent friendship in a mourning dress, abandoned to deepest sorrow, and with a negligence becoming woe unfeigned. Had I designed a complete elegy, madam, on your dearest brother, and intended it for public view, I should have followed the usual forms of part.poetry, so far at least as to spend some pages in the character and praises of the deceased, and thence have taken occasion to call mankind to Dress it with chains of gold to hang upon my heart. complain aloud of the universal and unspeakable A FUNERAL POEM ON THE DEATH OF THOMAS GUNSTON, ESQ. Presented to the Right Hon. the Lady Abney, Lady MADAM, loss: but I wrote merely for myself, as a friend of the dead, and to ease my full soul by breathing out my own complaints; I knew his character and virtues so well, that there was no need to mention them while I talked only with myself; for the image of them was ever present with me, which kept the pain at the heart intense and lively, and my tears flowing with my verse. Perhaps your ladyship will expect some divine thoughts and sacred meditations, mingled with a subject so solemn as this is. Had I formed a de July 1701. HAD I been a common mourner at the funeral of the dear gentleman deceased, I should have labour-sign of offering it to your hands, I had composed a more Christian poem; but it was grief purely natural for a death so surprising that drew all the strokes of it, and therefore my reflections are chiefly of a moral strain. Such as it is, your ladyship requires a copy of it; but let it not touch your soul too tenderly, nor renew your own mournReceive it, madam, as an offering of love and tears at the tomb of a departed friend, and let My grandfather, Mr. Thomas Watts, had such acquaintance with the mathematics, painting, music, and poesy, &e, as gave him con-iderable esteem among his contemporaries. He was commander of a ship of war, 1656, and by blowing up of the shipings. in the Dutch war he was drowned in his youth. it abide with you as a witness of that affectionate | See the dull wheels roll on the sable load; your ladyship's most hearty and obedient servant, I. WATTS. TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF MY MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, But no dear son to tread the mournful road, And must this building then, this costly frame, name Possess these rooms, the labours of my friend? Who died Nov. 11, 1700, when he had just finished Why these apartments all adorn'd so gay? his Seat at Newington. Why his rich fancy lavish'd thus away? Or blasted hopes, and of short withering joys, skies Drag but a longer ruin through the downward air, How did our souls stand flatter'd and prepar'd There the dear man should see his hopes complete, Smiling, and tasting every lawful sweet But hasty Fate thrusts her dread shears between, Till they are lost in shades, and mingle with the Muse, stretch thy wings, and thy sad journey bend How did he lay the deep foundations strong, Not Time itself should waste the blest estate, Rising perpetual. Muse, forsake the place, And every door groans doleful as it turns; The pillars languish; and each lofty wall, Oft have I laid the awful Calvin by, His country's sacred tears well-watering all the Two days ago we took the evening air, way. I, and my grief, and my Urania there; |