GREAT BRITTAINES SVNNES-SET, BEWAILED WITH A SHOWER OF TEARES.
BY WILLIAM BASSE.
AT OXFORD, Printed by Ioseph Barnes. 1613.
TO HIS HONOVRABLE MASTER S r RICHARD WENMAN Knight.
A Soule ore-laden with a greater Summe
Of ponderous sorrow then she can sustaine,
(Like a distressed sayle that labours home)
Some obiect seekes, wh
[...]eto she may complaine.
Not that (poore soule) hir obiect can draw from
Hir groaning breast th' occasion of hir paine:
But over charg'd with Teares shee (widow-like) bestowes
Vpon hir best friends eares, some children of her woes.
Not (like as when some triviall discontents
First taught my raw and lucklesse youth to rue)
Doe I to Flockes now vtter my laments,
Not choose a tree, or streame, to mourne vnto:
My waightier sorrow now
(Deare Sir) present
These her afflicted features to your view.
Whose free and noble mind (were not this griefe your owne
Would to my plaints be kind, if I complain'd alone.
But such true arguments of inward woe
In your sad face, I lately haue beheld,
As if your teares (like floods that overflowe
Their liquid shores) alone, would haue excell'd
This generall
Deluge of our eies, that so
Sea-like our earth-like cheekes hath over-swell'd:
As if your heart would send forth greatest lamentation,
Or striue to comprehend our vniversall passion.
And as th' occasion
(Sir) may iustly moue
To maid-like sorrow the most man-like heart:
So may your griefe (to your beholders) proue
The iustice of His grace, and your desart.
For teares and sighs are th' issues of true loue:
Our present woes our former ioies imparte.
He loues the living best, who for the dead mournes most:
He merits not the rest, who not laments the lost.
To you I therefore weepe: To you alone
I shew the image of your teares in mine;
That mine (by shewing your teares) may be show'n
To be like yours, so faithfull so divine▪
Such, as more make the publique woe their owne,
Then their woe publique▪ such as not confine
These
[...] to
rimes▪[?] not yet forms frō examples borrow▪
Where losse is in
[...], there boundlesse is the sorrow.
O let v
[...]
(Muse) this heavynesse (that no
Iust heart,
vncleft,[?] at one time can sustaine)
By fittes, and preparations vndergoe:
Let's feare, let's hope▪ tremble; and hope againe.
O▪ let vs this dysastrous truth ne're know;
But rather deafe and stupefied remaine:
For happier much it were, the hearing sence to loose,
Then loose all sence to heare such an vnhappy newes.
Like to a changeling (in his sleepes) become
Rob'd of his sexe, by some prodigious cause;
I am turn'd woman: watrish feares benube
My Heate: my Masculine existence thawes
To teares, wherein I could againe entombe
His tombe, or penetrate hir marble iawes:
But, O, why should I twice entombe him! O what folly
Were it to pierce (with sighes) a monument so holy!
Here then run forth thou River of my woes.
In cease lesse currents of complaining verse:
Here weepe (young Muse) while older pens compose
More solemne Rites vnto his sacred Hearse.
And, as when happy earth did here, enclose
His heav'nly minde, his Fame then Heav'n did pierce:
Now He in Heav'n doth
rest▪[?] now let his Fame catch fill;
So, both him then posses'd▪ so both possesse him still.
Or, like a
Nymph distracted or vndone
With blubber'd face, hands wrong, neglected haire,
Run through moist Valleys, through wide deserts run
Let speech-lesse
Eccho eccho thy dispaire.
Declare th' vntimely
Set of
Brittaines Sun
To sorrowing Shepheards: To sad
Nymphes declare
That such a night of woes, his
Occident doth follow
That
Day in darknes clothes, and mourner makes
Apollo.
But of his partes thinke not t'expresse the least
Whom Nature did the best in all things forme.
First, borne a
Prince (next to his FATHER) best;
Then, Fram'd a Man, to be, as he was borne:
Beauty his youth beyond all others blest,
Vertues did him beyond his youth adorne.
What Muse, what voice, what pen, cā give thee all thy duties
O Prince of Princes, me: youth, wisdō, deeds, & beauties.
Fates, that so soone beheld his Fame enrould,
Put to his golden thred their envious sheeres:
Death fear'd his magnanimitie to behold,
And (in his sleepe) basely reveng'd hir feares.
Time, looking on his wisdom, thought him old,
And laid his rash Sythe to his Primest yeares.
Stars that (in loue) did long t'embrace so faire a myrrhour
Wink'd at
Fates envious wrong,
Death's treason &
Times errour.
O Fates, O Time, O Death, (But you must all
Act the dread will of your Immortall GVIDE)
O Fates, How much more life did you appaule,
When you his liuely texture did divide?
O Time, when by thy sythe this
Flow'r did fall.
How many thousands did'st thou wound beside?
O Death, how many deathes, is of that life compacted,
That from all living breathes, his only death extracted.
How many braue Deedes
ha's[?] the wounded wombe
Of Hope, mis-carryed now, before their time?
How many high designes haue seene their doome
Before their birth, Or perish'd in their Prime?
How many beauties drown'd are in his tombe?
How many glories, with him, heavn's do clime?
How many sad cheekes mourne, Him laid in Earth to see
As they to earth would runne, his Sepulcher to be.
Like a high Pyramis, in all his towers
Finish'd this morning, and laid prostrate soone;
Like as if
Nighte's blacke and incestuous howers
Should force
Apollo's beauty before Noone:
Like as some strange change in the heav'nly powers
Should in hir
Full quench the refulgent
Moone:
So HE his daies, his light, and his life (here) expir'd
New built most
(Sū-like) bright Ful Mā, & most admir'd
But HEAV'NS, Disposers of all
Life and
Death,
That our pied pride, and wretched liues mislike,
Tooke HIM that's gone (from vs) to better breath
Vs that remaine, with (death from him) to strike.
His flower-like youth here, there more flourisheth,
His graces then, are now more Angel-like.
Those glories that in Him, so shone, now shine much more
Our glories now are dim, that shin'd in him before.
And thou faire
Ile, whose three-fold beauties face
Enchants the Three-fork'd
Scepter of thy
Lover,
That with thine owne eies drown'st thy lap, the place
That his enamour'd armes and streames would cover:
Make true and two-fold vse of griefe, That grace
May with affliction now, it selfe discouer.
These teares thou dost begin, to shed for HENRYES sake.
Continue for thy sinne, which made Heau'n
Henry take.
That thy iust Iames, who hither to hath sway'd
Thy Scepter Many-fold, and ample Frame,
Many more ages, yet, may liue obay'd
T'enlarge thy glories, and to yeeld the same
Divine examples vnto CHARLES that made
HENRY so noble, and so great in Fame.
For who but such a King, as
He, can such another
In place of
Henry bring? who match him but a BROTHER.
And neighbour Lands to whome our moanes we lent
May to our greater losse now lend vs theirs.
Florence his old
Duke mourn'd but we lament
A
greater then a
Duke in flowring yeares.
Spaine for a
Queene hir eies sad moisture spent:
We for a Prince (and for a Man) shed teares.
But
France whose cheek's still wet, nearest our griefe hath smarted;
For she from
Henry Great; wee from Great
Henry parted.
And thus, As I haue seene an even, showre,
(When
Phoebus to
Ioues other splendent heyres
Bequeath'd the Day) downe from
Olympus powre.
When Earth in teares of Trees, and Trees in teares
Of Mountaines wade. Like some neglected flowre
(Whose sorrow is scarce visible with theirs)
Downe to my silent brest my hidden face I bow:
My
Phoebus in his Rest, hath hid his heav'nly brow.
FINIS.
A MORNING AFTER MOVRNING.
LEt me no longer Presse your gentle eies,
Be'ing of themselues franke of religious teares.
But stanch these streames with so lace from the Skies;
Whence
Hymen deck'd in Saffron robes appeares.
Let
Henry now rest in our memories,
And let the
Rest, rest in our eies and eares.
Now He hath had his Rites, Let Those haue their adorning
By whose bright beames our Night of mourning ha's a morning.
And now (my
Muse) vnmasque thee: And see how
A second
Sonne in
Henries place doth shine.
See
Fiue great
Feastes all meete in one Day, now.
Our MAKER keepes his
Sabaoth most divine.
Isis and
Rhene are ioyn'd in sacred vow;
And faire
Eliza's Fredericke's Valentine.
The
Court in ioy artires hir splendent brow:
The
Country shroues; And all in mirth combine.
Fiue-times he hallowed. The Day, wherein, GOD rests,
Saints triumph, Princes wed: & Court & Coūtry feaste's.
FINIS.