AN ELEGIE UPON THE DEATH OF THE MIRROVR Of Magnanimity, the right Honourable Robert Lord Brooke; Lord Generall of the Forces of the Counties of VVarwick, and Stafford, who was slain by A Musket shot at the siege of Liechfield, the second day of March, 1642.
BAck blushing morne, to thine Eternall bed,
Ruffle for ever the tresses of thine head
In some thick Cloud, and thou whose raies do burn
The Center of the Universe, returne:
For if thy head beyond its Porch appeares,
Thy selfe, thy self must needs melt into teares.
Bright Saint thy pardon, if my dolefull Verse
Do seem in sighing ore thy glorious Hearse
To envy death; for fame it selfe now weares
Griefes Livery, and only speakes in teares.
Brave
Brooke is dead, like Lightning, which no part
O 'th body touches, but first strikes the heart,
This word hath murdred all; it can a shower
Enforce from every eye, it hath a power
To alter natures course, how else should all
Run wilde with mourning, and distracted fall.
Is't not a grosse unttuth to say, thy breath
Expir'd too soon? or that impartiall Death
Thy Corps too soon surpriz'd? No, if thy yeares
Be numbred by thy Vertues, or our teares,
Thou didst the old
Methusalem outlive;
Though Time not forty yeares account can give
Of thine abode on earth, yet every hower
Of thine unpattern'd life, by Vertues power
A yeare in length surpast, each well-spent day,
The body maketh young, the soule makes gray.
Ah cruell Death! who with one cursed Ball,
Didst make the
Atlas of our State to fall,
In one thou all hast slaine, whose death alone,
A death will be unto a Million.
Could none but his sweet Nectard blood appease
The fire-sprung Bullets heat? Must it needs seaze
His sacred face, it selfe there to enshrine,
Not in an earthly, but a Tombe divine.
See lucklesse
Liechfield that thou do not hide
The precious blood, which from the wound did slide
At this Lords death, it may not Cloister'd be
In thy fraile earth, alwayes impuritie
It did abhor, therefore in Sacrifice,
Send it unto its head above the skies,
And for an Altar whereon it to lay,
A thousand thousand soules through griefe this day
Themselves to death have wept, whom thou maist take,
And them conjoyne thine Altar for to make.
But lift not up thine head, least that the skies
In weeping showres of blood put out thine eyes.
And is this blessed
Brooke (whose Cristall streames
Sweld with such store of Grace, whose blissefull beames
Enlightned all) is it so soone drawne drie,
Leaving its ancient current, to fill each eye
With mournefull teares, surely in Paradise
It selfe it now dischannels, where no vice
Or shade of it appeares, a place most pure,
Where all such Saints for ever must endure.
I might relate thine actions here on earth,
Thy mysterie of life, thy noblest birth,
Outshin'd by nobler vertue, but how farre
Th' hast tane thy journey 'bove the highest starre
I cannot speake, nor whether thou art in
Commission with a Throne, or Cherubin.
I might unto the world, great Lord repeate,
Thine owne brave story, and tell it how great
Thou wert in thy minds Empire, and how all
Who out live thee, see but the Funerall
Of glory: and if yet some vertuous be,
They but weake apparitions are of thee.
Thine actions were most just, thy words mature,
And every scean of life from sin so pure,
That scarce in its whole history we can
Finde Vice enough to say thou wert but man.
'Tis past all mortals power, then much more mine,
To tell what vertues dwelt within this shrine,
Yet if illiterate persons walk this way,
And ask what jewell glorifies this clay,
Say, good
Brookes ashes this Tombe hath in keeping,
Then lead them forth, lest they grow blind withweeping.
Tell but his name, no more, that shall suffice,
To draw downe floods of teares from dryest eyes,
Our griefes are infinite, therefore my Muse,
Cast Anchor here, mine eyes cannot effuse
Any more teares, this for thy comfort know,
Fate cannot give us such another blow.
Ex opere (praesertim)
Henrici Haringtoni,
[...]
London printed for H. O. Anno Dom. 1642.