Musarum plangores: Upon the death of the right Honourable, Sir Christopher Hatton, Knight, etc.  

FLock on apace you troops of saddest wights,  
Fly fast unto repining sorrows Cell,  
Banish your joys, abandon all delights,  
And count each pleasing moment for a hell.  
For he that late did move your sweet content,  
Even now his chiefest fire of life hath spent.   

Muses come mourn, come gentle Muses weep,  
Wail you the want of such an English Peer:  
Whose virtues might uprayse from deadly sleep,  
The Ghosts of Poets buried many a year.  
Whose ceaseless moans might pierce the azurd skies,  
And fill fair Albion with their woeful cries.   

Perished is the root from whence such branches sprang,  
Dimmed is the light that glisteren like the Sun,  
Whose worthy deeds to every Region rang,  
And hath ere since his Honour first begun.  
Then you that loved the Lord that gave the HIND,  
breath forth the sorrows of your mournful mind.   

Princeps.  

SOrrow is sealed upon our Palace gate,  
And Heaviness with discontented steps,  
Hath chosen Sighs to be his careful mate,  
whereby our heart with inward passions leaps.  
How can the Members then but be distressed,  
When as the Head so highly is oppressed?   

Our Cedar stock hath lost a lively branch,  
And Death the huntsman of our human race,  
His fierce and eager appetite to staunch,  
In ranging through our Forest Sylvan chase,  
Hath slain the spotless HIND with cruel spite,  
In whom his Prince reposed a chief delight.   

Syluanes approach with mournful melody,  
And woody Nymphs, that sit in spreading bowers:  
With brackish tears commix your harmanie,  
To wail with me both minutes, months, and hours.  
For we have lost that nothing can amend:  
A faithful subject and a loyal friend.    

Primates.  

Upon the Sea, in threatening winters frown,  
When rising billows struggle with the wind:  
What sooner casts the Seaman's courage down,  
Then want of him their Pilot was assigned?  
Such may we call misfortune of our state,  
Deprived the counsel of a worthy mate.   

If brothers do lament a brother's death,  
And Nature join the Parent to deplore  
His tender son, bereft of vital breath:  
If for their young the savage beasts will roar,  
Then Reason, Nature, duty knit in one,  
For our grave friend enjoineth us to moon.   

The grace he got by virtue to arise,  
Was governed with such an humble mind;  
As none his Honour's titles could despise,  
Or for his favour any grudging find:  
Such name his wisdom always sought to have,  
Loved he lived, and honoured to his grave.    

Populus.  

BLack sorrows night with dismal pitchy clouds,  
Hath chaste the comfort of the day from hence,  
Within a hollow tomb our Solace shrouds,  
And Desolation burieth our defence.  
For which in tears, in sighs, in heart's distress,  
We now are forced to show our heaviness.   

Our cries were heard, our prayers found remorse,  
Our help stood not on linger delay,  
Pity in him retained a greater force,  
And justice walked in Virtues perfect way:  
Nor meed, nor friendship ever could avail  
To make our just and noble Patron quail.   

Why is't not granted of diviner powers,  
That such as best maintains their sacred laws,  
Should have the longest days and happiest hours,  
Where honour springs by virtues worthy cause?  
But all things precious and of purest price  
Forsakes the earth, to dwell above the skies.     

Musarum plangores.  

Melpomene.  

NOt from the sea (though salt doth hide my breast)  
But from a flood of tears, bankt in with grief,  
Whereas the black-foot Raven sought for rest,  
I come to menace moan without relief:  
My pen is Ebon, and my paper earth,  
Where I must write of honours endless dearth.   

My palled face, my eyelids hung with lead,  
The Arches hollow, like the chalky cliffs,  
My teeth that chatters echoes from the dead,  
Forced by their sighs that through their sorrow whiffs,  
Shows that some noble Lord hath left this land,  
Whose honoured graces, multiplied with sand.   

Of earth's more tarter is my body made,  
Of water's scum ordained to tragic tale:  
Yet were I harsher, his fair flowering fade  
Would make my sullen nature couch and quail.  
And so my tragic Muse shall sit and write,  
The wasting woe the Commons shall indite.    

Polihymnia.  

CEase proud vain glorious birds, and buzzing winds,  
My Rhetoric shall persuade me more to sing:  
But nests of Hornets from the rotten rinds,  
A harsher murmur to my sorrow bring.  
For from the groaves (enchanted now with care)  
The HIND is wandered: ill the flock do fare.   

The tongue of Time doth sightles glide away,  
And carrieth Envy with his swift-foot course,  
His spiteful Date hath brought before the day,  
An end to Honour (fell without remorse)  
My Rhetoric now shall be to ridgie rocks,  
Where Ruin feeds in stead of quiet flocks.   

The quill I lately plucked from Hermes wing  
Shall write my groaning plaint unto the sky,  
There shall the Throni with their Censors sing,  
His Noblesse and his Honour's victory.  
And with this pen the burden I will bear,  
That all may know how heaven his praise doth rear.    

Calliope.  

NOw Phoebus' Altars crack with rotten weeds,  
None bringeth spices from the Phoenix nest:  
Who discontented with those choking seeds,  
Brings floods of tears to drown that noy some Feast.  
His brows as smooth, as was his ivory Lute,  
Sends looks for frownings with a swift pursuit.   

This makes me cast my Music to the ground,  
And send Musaeus back again to hell,  
The night's sad Prophet makes me pleasant sound,  
And breeds desire within a cave to dwell:  
For all my Sisters drop their tears like showers,  
And leave the pleasure of Idalian bowers.   

Of round Cayister quills I'll make a pipe,  
And sing the swans last song upon this hill:  
For Death doth Honour with his talons gripe  
And with his blasting breath the Bay doth spill.  
Hereafter what I writ shall be in praise  
Of him, his bounty and his virtuous days.    

Clio.  

MY ancient books of graven monuments  
Are clasped for ever up with dusty leaves,  
For in the margin lies my discontents,  
How Fate and Death of Honour me bereaves,  
I'll change my late Historical intent,  
To write with them whose groans to clay are sent.   

Yet first I'll turn my Pen unto a Spade,  
And choose the entray les of the purest mould,  
Where when I see this noble Lord is laid,  
I'll write the rest my Sisters leave untold:  
The ground shall be embalmed with Muse's breath,  
Whose virtue purgeth all contagious earth.   

Then shall my Sisters dance about his Tomb,  
And with their feet shall make a wreath of flowers:  
So shall his Coarse be stuck with virtuous bloom,  
Shall make the ground smell like perfumed bowers,  
And of these flowers I will Garlands make,  
And ever wear them for his noble sake.    

Thalia.  

SVrceasing pastime of my comic pen,  
I'll tune my laughter unto lowed exclaims  
And tragic tears the floods of sorrowing men,  
Do seek to quench the fire that honour flames.  
My labouring hand doth let my tongue prevail,  
To treat of sorrow when my mirth doth fail.   

I'll set my breast to Lacus dulcis stream,  
And swim unto Elisean lily field,  
And in Ambrosian trees I'll write a Theme,  
Of all his deeds that Honour hath upheld:  
My dwelling is too full of mirth and glee,  
To write the Poems of a Tragedy.   

To all the Poets that inhabit there,  
Having their wits refined with heavenly air,  
By me his gifts of wisdom shall appear,  
And they shall sing them to the highest fair:  
Then turning back from whence I came again,  
I'll write of that which hath my pleasure slain.    

Euterpe.  

THe Northern Hunter blows his icy Horn,  
And bids me lay aside my windy sound,  
And blackfast storms outbrave the rosy morn,  
And makes her look as heavy as the ground:  
So like the noise of frost and rain together,  
My evil sounding Music tunes with wether.   

Stiff are my fingers like a Marble stone,  
Unfit to move a warbling instrument:  
My tawny skin is shrivelled to the bone,  
As if my senseless Senses did lament,  
The silent tale with dumb deliverance,  
The passion of some heavy dire mischance.   

My tongue incorporate with my scalding roof,  
Fears to report the failing of my hand,  
My sorrowing playmates shrink, and keep a loof,  
As if a dearth did cover all the land:  
No dearth, because it is not barren brought,  
But yet the fruit is cropped which dear I bought.    

Tarpsicore.  

MY Harp is strung with stretching Sorrows strings,  
And Death hath tuned it with his knobby bones,  
A solemn dump, the Music that it rings,  
Linked in Consort with deep fetched groans.  
For with my Sisters in a Cipres bower,  
My Bliss is Bale, my Sweet tormenting Sower.   

The Summer's season with her fresh attire,  
That always used t'muite me to her Palace:  
Where Nightingales did make a pleasant Choir,  
With sundry Lays to cause their Sovereign's Solace;  
Is nipped with Winter, and her pride is lost,  
My fingers stiff, my senses numbed with Frost.   

The prospect that appeareth to my eyes,  
Are wring hands of such that are forlorn:  
My ears are filled with Echoes double cries,  
Proceeding from unconstant Fortune's scorn.  
Thus are my Eyes, my Ears, my Hand and Heart,  
Made thrall to Sorrows never dying smart.    

Erato.  

I That did measure haughty Towers tops,  
And took the compass of the largest ground,  
My sorrows headlong course no Reason stops,  
And infinite mine agonies abound.  
For that proportion nature richly framed,  
By Death dissolueed doth make the Graces blamed.   

The numbers that adorned my sacred skill,  
Are now become Decrees of waxing Woe:  
My study is distress, my books do kill,  
And contemplation maketh dolours grow,  
Because the substance that I wished to save,  
Hath his dimension in a senseless grave.   

But since the Destinies have been severe  
To rob the earth of her assured delight,  
I'll find a place devoid of deadly fear,  
To measure out a mansion far more bright,  
Where free from harms, or any foul annoy,  
This Potentate shall have eternal joy.    

Urania.  

Give me (at last fair Sisters) leave to speak,  
Me thinks you should not wilfully repine,  
Or with extremities your duties break,  
When as the glory and the gain is mine:  
It grieves not me, when aught accords your will,  
Your overflowing mirth, my joys doth fill.   

Draw in your tears and let your sighs surcease,  
Exile exclaimings from your drooping hearts:  
For with his death his Honours doth increase.  
And though the earth contains his human parts,  
Yet shall his soul made pure with heavenly air,  
Receive the guerdon of his virtuous care.   

The stars bright eye shall guide his happy feet,  
The sun of gladness shine upon his face,  
The glorious Planets where so ere they meet,  
Within their shining arms his soul embrace.  
So that although his mortal days do wain,  
Despair not Sisters greater is his gain.    
FINIS.  
R. Ihonson. Sa: