Upon the Death of His Late Highness, OLIVER LORD PROTECTOR OF THE COMMON-WEALTH OF England, Scotland and Ireland, and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging.
AN ELEGIE.
AS (sometime) fals the lofty
Cedar down,
And knocks the Earth with his Cloud-neighbor Crown;
Or those tall
Elms, which by a fatal
Gust
Late forc'd, their
Stations left, and kist the
dust;
Presaging sure (as at
Romes Founders Fate
Th'
Eclipse and
Storm) a
Breach upon this
State,
Too soon (
alas!) fulfill'd: So fell this
Prince,
Great, as
Virtue's or
Valor's Excellence
Could form an
Heroe; whose
successes fill'd
The world with
Terror; whose
Exploits excell'd
Those
Chiefs of
Greece and
Rome, and spake a
fame
Of lowder accents then
Gustavus name;
Whose
Fortunes such, his
Foes as well might stem
The
current of the
Baltique Sea, as them;
Whose
Victories taught
Civil wars to cease,
And laid
three Nations in the armes of
Peace;
Who those
high mighty States, that by the sword
Redeem'd their Freedom from their
Spanish Lord,
Ev'n in their
height, subdu'd, and made them loer
Their tattred
Topsails to his
English power:
Proud
Romes idol'trous
Son his
Enlsigns next
A stonied, and in his
bosome vext;
Witness those
Cacus-dens (rich by the harms
Of
England) won by his
Herculean Armes:
But
Heav'n decreed that
Conquest, so begun,
Should finish'd be by His
Illustrious Son.
For now, to teach Earths
Potentates, that
Fate
Will ride triumphant in the
Palace gate;
(Stern and impartial
Fate!) whose strict
Commands
Not
Virtue, wall'd with
Arts and
Armes, withstands;
This meager
Serjeant comes to act his part,
Arrests his Life, and stabs his gen'rous heart;
Who by resignment of his dearest
Breath
Proclaims aloud th' authority of
Death.
That
day which twice his Victor-brows with
Bayes,
Had
crowned, crowns now th' period of his
dayes:
That signal
day which
twice renowns his
story,
Now the
third time consummates his
Glory.
The
Heav'ns seem'd hung with black,
grief Vail'd the
world,
Tears delug'd
Earth, the
Globe fear'd to be hurld
Back to its
Chaos load,
Confusion stood
A tiptoe, threatning a fresh Sea of
Blood;
The broaken
Roof presag'd the
Fabricks fall,
And mighty
ruine laid a claim to all.
But (
sacred Providence!) there did appear
A morning
Sun, to gild our
Hemisphere
With new and vigorous
Light, to cleer the
skies,
Dispel those
clouds of
Fear, and dry our
eyes?
Wise
Joshua arose in
Moses steed,
Elisha here
Elijah did succeed.
Thus warlike
David gaind the
Hebrew Crown,
And for Successor left a
Solomon.
‘Mira cano: Sol occubuit, Nox nulla secuta est.’
T. Mayhew.
London, Printed for Edward Husbands, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Golden-Dragon in Fleetstreet, 1658.