AN
ELEGIE
Sacred to the Memory of
Sir Edmund-bury Godfrey Knight;
Whose Body was lately found Barbarously Murthered, and since
Honourably Interrd, 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 Blazond 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 livd 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 amazd, can scarce express their Fears;
|
But onely court Heavns aid with silent Prayers:
|
So this dire Fact (which equal Terrour brought)
|
Stifles 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 powr 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 ner with any did a Feud profess,
|
But busie Treason, and lewd Idleness:
|
Whose Actions were not framd meerly for sight,
|
Like artful Pieces placd 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 entertaind th astonishing surprize;
|
How he with Christian grandeur did engage
|
Their sharpest Malice, and their utmost Rage;
|
T had filld our mindes with thoughts enlargd 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 checkd by Wrong, and ill men fortunate:
|
These movd Effects from an unmoved Cause,
|
Might shake an easie Faith; Heavns sacred Laws
|
Might casual seem, and our irregular Sense
|
Spurn at just Order, and blame Providence:
|
Did we not know, theres an adored Will
|
In all that happs to Men, or Good, or Ill,
|
Sufferd, 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 devlish Lust within.
|
Nor let the barbarous Actors hug their Crime,
|
Because they lurk concealed for a time:
|
Heavn sees, and will expose what they have done,
|
No doubt, ere long, to Justice and the Sun.
|
Mean time, loaded with Blood, Horrour, and Fear,
|
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 cannt 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 Heavns way,
|
And Powrs 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|