A POEM, Occasion'd by the DEATH OF HER Late MAJESTY OF Ever Happy and Sacred Memory.
By a Private Hand.
LONDON, Printed for, and sold by J. Whitlock near Stationers-Hall. 1695.
A POEM, Occasion'd by the Death of Her late Majesty, &c.
REtir'd within my self, thus long to mourn,
Despairing of my former Joy's return;
Confin'd to mournfull melancholly Thought,
Whose Cause, excess of Grief alone has wrought,
No Remedy to mitigate my Woe.
Besides what Tears and deepest Sighs allow:
Faign I from Words wou'd seek for some Relief,
Desiring thence no Cure, but Ease from Grief:
But oh! the Subject now becomes too great,
For Sighs and Tears to show, or Words repeat.
This fatal Truth does Albion now confess,
And knows not how Her Sorrows to express;
But for Heav'ns promise which prevents my Fears,
I shou'd expect a second Flood by Tears.
Time, which has ever yet been found to be,
Against such Ills a Sovereign Remedy,
Will useless now, and ineffectual prove,
And must our selves, if it our Grief remove:
For all till Death, must this great Loss deplore,
When Time it self with us can be no more.
For ever Sacred be Her Memory;
From swift-pac'd Time's destructive Power free,
'Till swallow'd with it in Eternity.
What Blessings did we promise to our Isle?
What blooming Hopes did adverse Fate beguile?
The fairest Flow'r is cropt and snatcht form View,
That e're in Nature's well-stor'd Garden grew.
Since that the Word was Flesh; sure Heav'n ne're joyn'd
Such lovely Form, with so divine a Mind.
Those ill Examples which in Courts abound,
(Where Vice in all alluring Shapes is found;)
Caus'd on Her well fix'd Vertues no Restraint;
Like Mercy kind, and Pious as a Saint.
Ne're were in one so many Grace seen;
Meek, tho' so Great, and Humble, tho' a Queen.
Vice in a Torrent long o're-flow'd the Land,
Which She alone was able to withstand:
Nor onely so, but stemm'd th' increasing Flood,
And show'd the Excellence of being Good.
This She durst do, and do at such a Time,
When Vice was hugg'd, and Vertue thought a Crime.
Vertue felt an Eclipse till She appear'd;
And scarce more than the Name was known or heard.
What Vertues scatter'd through the Sex appear
In Her, a glorious Constellation were.
We now (since She from Care below's releas'd)
May truly say, That Miracles are ceas'd.
But say, Oh! Whither, whither is She fled?
Methinks I hear Grief whisper, She is Dead.
Oh! never say She's dead, can such Worth be
Like us, subjected to Mortality?
Say rather, On an Embassy She's gone,
(As none so fit) to the Caelestial Throne,
(As whilst on Earth we were Her chiefest Care,
So now) to fix a firm Alliance there.
FINIS.