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What ease can hope that we shall see him beget,
When we must die first, and cannot die yet?
His children are his pictures; O, they be
Pictures of him dead, senseless, cold as he.
Here needs no marble tomb, since he is gone,
He, and about him his, are turn'd to stone.

SIR,

TO SIR ROBERT CARR.

I presume you rather try what you can do in me, than what I can do in verse; you know my uttermost when it was best, and even then I did best when I had least truth for my subjects. In this present case there is so much truth as it defeats all poetry. Call therefore this paper by what name you will, and, if it be not worthy of him, nor of you, nor of me, smother it, and be that the sacrifice.1 If you had commanded me to have waited on his body to Scotland and preached there, I would have embraced the obligation with more3 alacrity; but I thank you that you would command me that which I was loth to do, for even that hath given a tincture of merit to the obedience of

Your poor friend and

servant in Christ Jesus,
J. D.

1 So 1635; 1633, worthy of you, nor of him, we will

smother it, and be it your sacrifice

2 So 1635; 1633, your
4 So 1635; 1633, lother
VOL. II.

3 So 1635; 1633, much

7

A HYMN TO THE SAINTS, AND TO MARQUIS
HAMILTON.

WHETHER that soul which now comes up to you
Fill any former rank, or make a new ;
Whether it take a name named there before,
Or be a name itself and order more

Than was in heaven till now-for may not he
Be so, if every several angel be

A kind alone? whatever order grow
Greater by him in heaven, we do not so.
One of your orders grows by his access,
But, by his loss, grow all our orders less;
The name of father, master, friend, the name
Of subject and of prince, in one is lame;
Fair mirth is damp'd, and conversation black,
The Household widow'd, and the Garter slack;
The Chapel wants an ear, Council a tongue;
Story, a theme; and Music lacks a song.
Blest order that hath him, the loss of him
Gangrened all orders here; all lost a limb.
Never made body such haste to confess
What a soul was; all former comeliness
Fled, in a minute, when the soul was gone;
And, having lost that beauty, would have none.
So fell our monasteries, in an instant grown
Not to less houses, but to heaps of stone;

ΙΟ

20

So sent his body that fair form it wore
Unto the sphere of forms, and doth-before
His soul shall fill up his sepulchral stone-
Anticipate a resurrection.

For, as in his fame now his soul is here,
So, in the form thereof, his body's there;
And if, fair soul, not with first Innocents
Thy station be, but with the Penitents,

-And who shall dare to ask then, when I am
Dyed scarlet in the blood of that pure Lamb,
Whether that colour, which is scarlet then,
Were black or white before in eyes of men?—
When thou rememb'rest what sins thou didst find
Amongst those many friends now left behind,
And seest such sinners, as they are, with thee
Got thither by repentance, let it be

30

40

Thy wish to wish all there, to wish them clean,
Wish him a David, her a Magdalen.

1. 25. So 1635; 1633, this

1. 29. 1650, it his fame; 1669, it is his fame

ON HIMSELF.

My fortune and my choice this custom break,
When we are speechless grown to make stones speak.
Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou
In my grave's inside seest what thou art now,
Yet thou 'rt not yet so good; till us death lay
To ripe and mellow here, we're stubborn clay.
Parents make us earth, and souls dignify
Us to be glass; here to grow gold we lie.
Whilst in our souls sin bred and pamper'd is,
Our souls become worm-eaten carcases,
So we ourselves miraculously destroy.
Here bodies with less miracle enjoy
Such privileges, enabled here to scale

Heaven, when the trumpet's air shall them exhale.
Hear this, and mend thyself, and thou mend❜st me,
By making me, being dead, do good for thee;
And think me well composed, that I could now
A last sick hour to syllables allow.

1. 14. 1669, then exhale

ΙΟ

1

ELEGY.

MADAM,

That I might make your cabinet my tomb,
And for my fame, which I love next my soul,
Next to my soul provide the happiest room,
Admit to that place this last funeral scroll.
Others by wills give legacies, but I
Dying, of you do beg a legacy.

My fortune and my will this custom break,
When we are senseless grown to make stones speak,
Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou
In my grave's inside see what thou art now,
Yet thou 'rt not yet so good; till us death lay
To ripe and mellow there, we're stubborn clay.
Parents make us earth, and souls dignify
Us to be glass; here to grow gold we lie.
Whilst in our souls sin bred and pamper'd is,
Our souls become worm-eaten carcases.

1. 12. So 1669; 1635, mellow thee

ΙΟ

THE END OF FUNERAL ELEGIES.

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