GREAT BRITAIN'S SUNNES-SET, BEWAILED WITH A SHOWER OF TEARS.  
BY WILLIAM BASSE.  
AT OXFORD, Printed by joseph Barnes. 1613.   

TO HIS HONOURABLE MASTER Sr RICHARD WENMAN Knight.   


A Soul o'erladen with a greater Sum  
Of ponderous sorrow than she can sustain,  
(Like a distressed sail that labours home)  
Some object seeks, wh●eto she may complain.  
Not that (poor soul) her object can draw from  
Her groaning breast th' occasion of her pain:  
But over charged with Tears she (widow-like) bestows  
Upon her best friends ears, some children of her woes.   

Not (like as when some trivial discontents  
First taught my raw and luckless youth to rue)  
Do I to Flocks now utter my laments,  
Not choose a tree, or stream, to mourn unto:  
My weightier sorrow now (Dear Sir) present  
These her afflicted features to your view.  
Whose free and noble mind (were not this grief your own  
Would to my plaints be kind, if I complained alone.   

But such true arguments of inward woe  
In your sad face, I lately have beheld,  
As if your tears (like floods that overflow  
Their liquid shores) alone, would have excelled  
This general Deluge of our eyes, that so  
Sea-like our earth-like cheeks hath over-swelled:  
As if your heart would send forth greatest lamentation,  
Or strive to comprehend our universal passion.   

And as th' occasion (Sir) may justly move  
To maidlike sorrow the most manlike heart:  
So may your grief (to your beholders) prove  
The justice of His grace, and your desert.  
For tears and sighs are th' issues of true love:  
Our present woes our former joys impart.  
He loves the living best, who for the dead mourns most:  
He merits not the rest, who not laments the lost.   

To you I therefore weep: To you alone  
I show the image of your tears in mine;  
That mine (by showing your tears) may be shown  
To be like yours, so faithful so divine▪  
Such, as more make the public woe their own,  
Then their woe public▪ such as not confine  
These 〈◊〉 to rhymes▪ not yet forms from examples borrow▪  
Where loss is in 〈…〉, there boundless is the sorrow.   

O let v● (Muse) this heaviness (that no  
Just heart, uncleft, at one time can sustain)  
By fits, and preparations undergo:  
Let's fear, let's hope▪ tremble; and hope again.  
O▪ let us this disastrous truth ne'er know;  
But rather deaf and stupefied remain:  
For happier much it were, the hearing sense to lose,  
Then loose all sense to hear such an unhappy news.   

Like to a changeling (in his sleeps) become  
Robbed of his sex, by some prodigious cause;  
I am turned woman: waterish fears benube  
My Heat: my Masculine existence thaws  
To tears, wherein I could again entomb  
His tomb, or penetrate her marble jaws:  
But, O, why should I twice entomb him! O what folly  
Were it to pierce (with sighs) a monument so holy!   

Here then run forth thou River of my woes.  
In cease less currents of complaining verse:  
Here weep (young Muse) while older pens compose  
More solemn Rites unto his sacred Hearse.  
And, as when happy earth did here, enclose  
His heavenly mind, his Fame then Heaven did pierce:  
Now He in Heaven doth rest▪ now let his Fame catch fill;  
So, both him then possessed▪ so both possess him still.   

Or, like a Nymph distracted or undone  
With blubbered face, hands wrong, neglected hair,  
Run through moist Valleys, through wide deserts run  
Let speechless Echo echo thy despair.  
Declare th' untimely Set of Britain's Sun  
To sorrowing Shepherds: To sad Nymphs declare  
That such a night of woes, his Occident doth follow  
That Day in darkness clothes, and mourner makes Apollo.   

But of his parts think not t'express the least  
Whom Nature did the best in all things form.  
First, borne a Prince (next to his FATHER) best;  
Then, Framed a Man, to be, as he was borne:  
Beauty his youth beyond all others blest,  
Virtues did him beyond his youth adorn.  
What Muse, what voice, what pen, can give thee all thy duties  
O Prince of Princes, me: youth, wisdom, deeds, & beauties.   

Fates, that so soon beheld his Fame enrolled,  
Put to his golden thread their envious shears:  
Death feared his magnanimity to behold,  
And (in his sleep) basely revenged her fears.  
Time, looking on his wisdom, thought him old,  
And laid his rash Sith to his Primest years.  
Stars that (in love) did long t'embrace so fair a myrrhour  
Winked at Fates envious wrong, Death's treason & Time's error.   

O Fates, O Time, O Death, (But you must all  
Act the dread will of your Immortal GUIDE)  
O Fates, How much more life did you appaule,  
When you his lively texture did divide?  
O Time, when by thy sith this Flower did fall.  
How many thousands didst thou wound beside?  
O Death, how many deaths, is of that life compacted,  
That from all living breaths, his only death extracted.   

How many brave Deeds has the wounded womb  
Of Hope, miscarried now, before their time?  
How many high designs have seen their doom  
Before their birth, Or perished in their Prime?  
How many beauties drowned are in his tomb?  
How many glories, with him, heavn's do climb?  
How many sad cheeks mourn, Him laid in Earth to see  
As they to earth would run, his Sepulchre to be.   

Like a high Pyramid, in all his towers  
Finished this morning, and laid prostrate soon;  
Like as if Nighte's black and incestuous hours  
Should force Apollo's beauty before Noon:  
Like as some strange change in the heavenly powers  
Should in her Full quench the refulgent Moon:  
So HE his days, his light, and his life (here) expired  
New built most (Sunlike) bright Full Man, & most admired   

But heavens, Disposers of all Life and Death,  
That our pied pride, and wretched lives mislike,  
took HIM that's gone (from us) to better breath  
Us that remain, with (death from him) to strike.  
His flower-like youth here, there more flourisheth,  
His graces then, are now more Angellike.  
Those glories that in Him, so shone, now shine much more  
Our glories now are dim, that shined in him before.   

And thou fair I'll, whose threefold beauties face  
Enchants the Three-forked Sceptre of thy Lover,  
That with thine own eyes drownest thy lap, the place  
That his enamoured arms and streams would cover:  
Make true and twofold use of grief, That grace  
May with affliction now, itself discover.  
These tears thou dost begin, to shed for HENRY'S sake.  
Continue for thy sin, which made Heaven Henry take.   

That thy just james, who hither to hath swayed  
Thy Sceptre Manifold, and ample Frame,  
Many more ages, yet, may live obeyed  
T'enlarge thy glories, and to yield the same  
Divine examples unto CHARLES that made  
HENRY so noble, and so great in Fame.  
For who but such a King, as He, can such another  
In place of Henry bring? who match him but a BROTHER.   

And neighbour Lands to whom our moans we lent  
May to our greater loss now lend us theirs.  
Florence his old Duke mourned but we lament  
A greater than a Duke in flowering years.  
Spain for a Queen her eyes sad moisture spent:  
We for a Prince (and for a Man) shed tears.  
But France whose cheek's still wet, nearest our grief hath smarted;  
For she from Henry Great; we from Great Henry parted.   

And thus, As I have seen an even, shower,  
(When Phoebus to Ioues other splendent heirs  
Bequeathed the Day) down from Olympus' power.  
When Earth in tears of Trees, and Trees in tears  
Of Mountains wade. Like some neglected flower  
(Whose sorrow is scarce visible with theirs)  
Down to my silent breast my hidden face I bow:  
My Phoebus in his Rest, hath hid his heavenly brow.   
FINIS.   

A MORNING AFTER MOURNING.  

LEt me no longer Press your gentle eyes,  
Being of themselves frank of religious tears.  
But staunch these streams with so lace from the Skies;  
Whence Hymen decked in Saffron robes appears.  
Let Henry now rest in our memories,  
And let the Rest, rest in our eyes and ears.  
Now He hath had his Rites, Let Those have their adorning  
By whose bright beams our Night of mourning has a morning.   

And now (my Muse) unmasque thee: And see how  
A second Son in Henry's place doth shine.  
See Five great Feasts all meet in one Day, now.  
Our MAKER keeps his Sabaoth most divine.  
Isis and Rhine are joined in sacred vow;  
And fair Eliza's Fredericke's Valentine.  
The Court in joy arteries her splendent brow:  
The Country shroves; And all in mirth combine.  
Fivetimes he hallowed. The Day, wherein, GOD rests,  
Saints triumph, Princes wed: & Court & Country feaste's.   
FINIS.