AN ELEGIE Sacred to the Memory of Sir Edmund-bury Godfrey Knight; Whose Body was lately found Barbarously Murthered, and since Honourably Interr'd, the 31th of October, 1678.
AN ELEGIE! forbear: who ere
profanes
This
lasting Name with cheap unhallowed strains,
Commits a
Murther second to their Guilt,
By whose
infernal Hands his Blood was spilt.
So vast a
Merit, and so strange a
Fate,
Must not be
Blazon'd at the common Rate;
With
mercenary Rhyme,
Set-forms of Praise,
Or
stale Applauses which bold Flatterers raise
To
pin upon some Herse, whose waiting throng
Mourn onely 'cause the party liv'd
so long.
Those
customary Sighs have here no part;
We Weep
in earnest, and untaught by Art.
Slight Griefs may speak aloud; but those that come
From
deep Resentments of our Loss, are dumb.
As when fierce
Thunder the Worlds Poles doth shake,
Or Winds
break Jail, and make the Earth to quake:
Mortals amaz'd, can scarce exprese their Fears;
But onely court Heav'ns aid with silent Prayers:
So
this dire Fact (which equal Terrour brought)
Stisles our
Reason, and
Benums our
Thought.
A
Chilling Horrour thrils through every Vein;
Each honest man by
Sympathy is slain,
Or feels with
Him, though not the
Death, the
pain.
'Tis dangerous to be Good: well may we praise
Vertue or
Innocence; but who can raise
A pow'r that shall
secure them, or withstand
Th'Assassinations of a
bloody Hand?
He whose
clear Life might an Example be
Of upright
Justice, generous
Charity;
That
publique spirit that laid out his Store
T'employ and cherish all
industrious Poor;
And ne'r with any did a Feud profess,
But busie
Treason, and lewd
Idleness:
Whose Actions were not fram'd meerly for sight,
Like artful Pieces plac'd in a fit light,
That they may take at distance; but appear
Most
fair when you observe them most, and
near.
This LOYAL PATRIOT, by untimely Fate,
And
basest cruelties of unjust Hate,
Falls as a
Victim for the Church and State.
Could we have seen with what
composed Eyes
He entertain'd th'astonishing
surprize;
How he with
Christian grandeur did engage
Their sharpest Malice, and their utmost Rage;
T'had fill'd our mindes with thoughts
enlarg'd and
high,
And taught
unhappy Heroes how to die.
Methinks t'observe how
Vertue draws faint breath,
Subject to
Slanders, Plots, and
Violent Death;
How many
dangers on
best actions wait,
Right check'd by
Wrongs, and ill men
fortunate:
These mov'd Effects from an
unmoved Cause,
Might shake an easie
Faith; Heav'ns sacred Laws
Might
casual seem, and our irregular Sense
Spurn at just
Order, and blame
Providence:
Did we not know, there's an
adored Will
In all that happs to Men, or
Good, or
Ill,
Suffer'd, or
sent; and what is Man to pry,
Into th'Abyss of such a Mystery?
The Rising
Sun to mortal sight reveals
This lower Globe; but the bright
Stars conceals.
So may our
Sense discover
natural things;
But those
Divine soar above
Humane Wings.
Then not the
Fate, but Fates bad
Instrument
Let us accuse, in each sad accident.
Good men must
die: Rapes, Incest MURTHERS come;
But
Woe and
Curses follow them by whom.
God Authors all mens
Actions, not their
Sin;
For that proceeds from
dev'lish Lust within.
Nor let the
barbarous Actors hug their Crime,
Because they
lurk concealed for a time:
Heav'n
sees, and will expose what they have done,
No doubt, ere long, to
Justice and the Sun.
Mean time, loaded with
Blood, Horrour, and Fears,
And that which crowns all Villany,
Despair;
May they possess their PURGATORY here,
And as
Cains sin, so his
Self-tortures bear.
May they the wounding
stripes of Conscience feel,
That lashes
Guilt with whips of
flaming steel,
So long, till they shall count
Deaths pains far
less,
And
freely come the Murther to confess.
But as when
stinking Exhalations rise,
And with
black storms invade the purer skies;
They cann't
put out the Sun, though
hide his Rays,
Which quickly he more
gloriously displays:
So these
vile hands in their Revenge are poor;
In murthering
Him, their
Cause they murther more.
Hells Agents do but hasten him
Heav'ns way,
And
Pow'rs of darkness antedate his
day.
In vain, in vain, is all their cursed spight:
He still
survives in Fields of blissful light,
And with a
pitying smile from thence looks down,
Ennobled with a
Martyrs brighter Crown;
Whilst at th'
Interment of his slumbering Clay,
A
weeping Nation shall just Honours pay.
H. C.
FINIS.
Licens'd,
Octob. 30, 1678.
LONDON: Printed for L. C. 1678.