GREAT Britain, all in Black.  
FOR The incomparable loss of HENRY, our late worthy Prince.  
By john Taylor.  
LONDON Printed by E.A. for I. Wright dwelling in Newgate Market, near unto Christ's Church gate. 1612.   

 

HENRICUS PRINCEPS   

SEe here the portrait of that matcheles wight  
Whose valour paralleled the God of fight:  
At Tilt, at Barriers, both with sword and spear  
He made his hopeful prowess oft appear:  
His shadow's here, the world his substance misses  
That was this Isles Achilles and Ulysses.  
His soul's enthroned above heaven's spangled frame,  
And earth's adorned with his resounding fame.    

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL AND MY MUCH ENDEARED FRIEND Sir Robert Douglas Knight.  

TO thee I consecreate these mourning lines  
Of Royal Henry's sad untimely hearse,  
For want of whom this Kingdom weeps & pines,  
With sighs and groans and eye-bedewing verse:  
I know his loss thy manly heart did pierce,  
And 'mongst thy woes, this woe exceeds the worst:  
I know thou rather hadst (death's javeline fierce)  
To save his life, thy loyal heart had burst.  
But 'tis our fortunes and our fates accursed,  
Amidst these days of sorrow to survive;  
And lifes unpermanent all trustless trust  
Is fled from him who kept our hopes alive:  
But let sweet patience subjugate your sorrow  
A heavy evening brings a joyful morrow.   
Your Worships ever most obseqivous. john Taylor.   

GREAT Britain all in Black.  

NOt any Poets all-reviuing pen  
Can write unparalleled Prince Henry's praise:  
Nor can their Muses call him back again:  
Whose living virtues shine (like Titan's rays)  
Had I a quill of that Arabian wing  
That's hatched in embers of Sun-kindled fire,  
Who to herself her self doth issue bring,  
And three in one, is Young, and Dam, and Sire.  
Oh that I could to Virgil's vein aspire,  
Or Homer's Verse, that golden languaged Greek,  
In polished Phrases I my lines would tyre  
Into the depth of Art my Muse would seek.  
Mean time she 'mongst the linguist Poets throngs,  
Although she want the help of Foreign Tongues.   

To King JAMES.  
Since such great praise is due unto the Fruit,  
There's greater laud belongs unto the Tree:  
Then in thy Glory how can men be mute  
That knows such Glorious Branches sprung from thee?  
For if such honour to the Fruit we owe  
The Tree deserves more whence this Fruit did grow.   

To Queen ANNE.  
Thou fruitful Vine, thou blessed-bearing Queen,  
From whom these Olive Branches sprouts and springs;  
Thou that by Heaven so Royalized hast been,  
To be Child, Sister, and a Wife, to Kings:  
Long mayst thou live, that all the World may know  
Thou art the Stock whence Majesty doth grow.   

To Prince CHARLES'.  
Great Son of Greatness I the Heavens implore  
That here thou mayst have long, and happy days,  
That ere above the Skies thy Soul shall sore  
Thou mayst achieve thy famous Brother's praise,  
And when 'mongst Saints thy Father takes his seat,  
God make thee then great Britain's Charles the Great.   

To the Princess ELIZABETH.  
Thou whom this Isle, and Nations near and far  
Admires for Angell-forme, and Saintlike mind,  
Whose Virtues shine as doth a fixed Star,  
From Thames unto the farthest part of Ind.  
All Heavenly blessings rain on thee on Earth,  
And make thy fortunes Great as is thy Birth.   

To the Count PALATINE.  
Most mighty, all-beloved lovely Lord,  
Wars pattern, and a Patron unto Scholars:  
Great Britain doth a jewel thee afford,  
More rich in price then all the German collars,  
Live ever happy with thy joyful Gem  
In Earth, and in the new jerusalem.   

TO God.  
Last unto thee that art both First and Last,  
For his dear sake that conquered Death, and Hell,  
I do beseech thee headlong down to cast  
All traitors 'gainst these Princes that rebel:  
blot from thy Book of life their impious Names  
That seek subversion of Monarking james.   

AEquinoques on the deceased Prince HENRY.  
To write Great Britain's woe how am I able?  
That having lost a peerless Princely Son,  
So wise, so grave, so stout, so amiable,  
Whose Virtues shined as did the mid days Sun,  
And did illustrate all our Hemisphere,  
Now all the world affords not him his fere.   

His Royal mind was evermore disposed,  
From virtue unto virtue to accrue:  
On good deserts his bounty he disposed,  
Which made him followed by so brave a crew,  
That though himself was peerless, many a Peer,  
As his Attendants, daily did appear.   

In him the Thunderers braine-borne daughter Pallas  
Had ta'en possession, as her native Clime:  
In him, and his terrestrial heavenly Palace  
Was taught how men by virtuous deeds shall climb,  
So that although his years were in their spring  
He was true honours fount and valours spring.   

So firm, so stable, and so continent  
So wise, so valiant, and so truly chaste:  
That from his Microcosmos continent,  
All Heaven abhorred hell-hatched lust was chased:  
He ran no vicious-vice-alluring race,  
To stain the glory of his Royal race.   

His soul from whence it came is gone again,  
And earth hath ta'en, what did to earth belong:  
He whilom to this land was such a gain,  
That memory of his loss must needs be long.  
All states and sexes both the young and grave  
Laments his timeless going to his grave.   

Man murdering death, blind, cruel fierce and fell,  
How dared thou gripe him in thy meager arms?  
By thy rude stroke this Prince of Princes fell,  
Whose valour braved the mighty God of Arms:  
Right well in peace, he could of peace debate,  
Dreadless of dreadful danger or debate.   

Robustious rawboand monster death, to tear  
From us our happy hope we did enjoy:  
And turn our many joys to many a tear,  
Who else might joyfully have lived in joy:  
As wind on thousands all at once doth blow,  
By his death's stroke so millions feels the blow.   

Well could I wish, (but wishing is in vain)  
That many millions, and amongst them I  
Had sluiced the bloods from every flowing vein,  
And vented floods of water from each eye:  
T'have saved the life of this Majestic heir,  
Would thousand souls had wandered in the air.   

But cease my Muse, thou far unworthy art  
To name his name, whose praise on high doth mount:  
Leave, (leave I say) this task to men of Art,  
And let his soul rest in sweet Zion's Mount.  
His Angel sprite hath bid the world adieu  
And earth hath claimed his body as a due.   

Epitaphe.  
here under ground great HENRY'S corpse doth lie,  
If God were pleased, I would it were a lie.   john Taylor  

GREAT BRITAIN'S GREATEST WOE. OR AN elegiacal Lamenting Poem, for the incomparable Loss of losses, of HENRY our late hopeful PRINCE.  

SIghs, groans, and tears, assist my Muse to mourn  
His death, whose life all virtue did adorn:  
Whose aged wisdom, and whose youthful age  
Was second unto none, that's wise or sage:  
So old in sapience, so young, so grave,  
To be transferred unto his timeless grave.  
Melpomene (thou sad'st among the Muses)  
Possess my soul, and make mine eyes like sluices,  
(Or like the restless torrents of the Thames)  
To gush forth floods of never-ending streams  
For this magnanimous heroic Prince.  
Let every one their mournful faces rinse,  
With brinish tears and bitter lamentation,  
And drown their visage with the inundation.  
Let sighs, and groans, and tears this I'll o'erflow,  
And overwhelm our hearts with floods of woe:  
Let scalding sobs of this lamenting land,  
Raise storms and tempests, universal, and  
In this confusion make the world to droop,  
And highest hearted honoured minds to stoop,  
And with deploring languor, hang the head,  
For loss of him that lives, and yet is dead.  
Let Britain's groanings, drown Oake-cleaving thunder  
And fill the vaulty air with fear and wonder;  
For he that was the world's admired Lamp,  
The life of Peace, of War, of Court, of Camp,  
Th'expected hope of blessed ensuing time,  
Fell in his spring, and died in golden prime.  
Thou happy I'll, ordained to hapless cross,  
Thou never canst enough lament his loss:  
Thy hopes, and haps, were never less, nor more,  
A better good, or worse ill before,  
(Than was the life or death of this dear Lord)  
No memory, nor story doth record.  
Black valiant Edward that war-breathing Prince,  
Whose proved prows did all France convince,  
And in the jaws of death his foes did quell,  
Our Henry would have been his parallel.  
jove, Mars, and sweet Adonis were combined  
In Henry's form, his force, and Royal mind.  
But now death's Cloud eclipsed great Britain's Sun,  
His rays extinct, our springing hopes are done.  
Ye Esculapian Doctors, now give over,  
Honour is dead, and never will recover:  
Your Simples are but simple, and your drugs  
Are weak, when life and death for mastery tugs:  
Despite your Antidotes and stone of Bezoar,  
Death kills the Caitiff and the mighty Keisar.  
Your Vomits, Cordials, Evacuations,  
Your Baths and your humidious Fomentations,  
Are forceless opposites, against greifly death,  
And all unualued, in exchange of breath.  
But pardon me (you famous men of Art)  
I'll not impeach your high esteemed desert,  
Who are ordained by God to keep men's lives  
In health and vigour with preservatives.  
We ought to honour the Physician still,  
And hold in reverence his admired skill.  
But yet if you by wit, by Art, or Nature  
Had had preserving power to save a creature,  
You should have show'd it in his preservation,  
Who was the life and soul of this sad Nation.  
But there's no power external nor internal,  
That can resist his will that is Supernal,  
Who rules and reigns, above the azur'd skies,  
And all things sees with his all-searching eyes:  
From his omnipotent Majestic Seat  
He saw the sin of man was grown so great,  
That he audaciously dares spurn against Heaven,  
And therefore from us hath this Prince bereau'n:  
Depriving him of a Terrestrial Throne,  
Exchanging it for an Immortal one:  
Where Kings, and Princes, Saints, and Martyrs sings  
Continual Anthems to the King of Kings.  
Thus God (accounting him too good for Earth)  
Hath given his Soul a glorious second birth:  
And as his state and virtues here were great,  
he's greater now, in his triumphant Seat:  
In that blessed Kingdom of eternal rest,  
Where he for ever lives among the blessed.  
Great Britain, think not but Almighty God  
Doth threaten Vengeance, with his awful Rod:  
And that from us this Prince he hath bereft,  
Before he draws his sinne-consuming Shaft.  
He takes the good to his great Mercies doom,  
And leaves the wicked till his vengeance come.   

But all our hopes are yet not in despair;  
For though the heavens contain great Britain's heir  
(As knowing Earth unworthy such a gem)  
Yet are there branches of that Royal stem,  
That till the consummation of all things,  
I hope shall be this islands Queens and Kings,  
In true succession always to persever,  
To Rule and reign for ever, and for ever,  
Not only here, (where pomp is transitory)  
But in the heavens in never ending glory.  
Unto which prayer, with heart, with tongue, and pen,  
Let all that love salvation, say Amen.   
FINIS.  john Taylor.  

Epitaph.  

LIu's there a heart that could not rive in sunder,  
To see what all-devouring Death hath done  
Unto that lou'ly majesties Great Son,  
Whose stately Corpses lies here enclosed under.  
His fame that whilom like jehovahs' Thunder,  
Was mounted on the Airs all-filling Wind  
Agreeing well with his Heroic mind,  
Who Comet-like made all the world to wonder.  
Lo what Grim Death untimely hath destroyed:  
Cursed be the Planet governed at his Birth  
Who (Traitorlike) conspired to rob the earth  
Of such a hope as never men enjoyed.  
O could our tears, or bloods recall this doom,  
Millions would wash thee from thy Marble Tomb.  Ri: Leigh.  

Lament. Heu, heu, mortuis Lachrymae non prosunt.    

To the public Reader.  
IN haste, thus, I now confess these following Poems were of my making: but I was condemned to be priest, before I would confess. They are few: (I would there had been none) the good subject too soon offered the ill occasion. (Heavens pleasure still put before) Had I determined them for public view, there had been more, but being so little, I hope it cannot offend much: 'tis more healthful to rise unsated then too much gorged, especially, at a funeral banquet. I profess divinity, but no teacher, therefore I write not divinely: the flourishes of high styled Poesy I likewise hold unfit for so familiar a Christian subject, therefore I forsake that only in a smooth and low-bred method I have couched these few verses (in mine own judgement most proper,) if it be not so, judge you otherwise: they are unpolished & I have no time to correct them: read them the more distinctly, & that will somewhat better them; how ever, take them. If they dislike thee, I much care not, since they have in private pleased some good ones: and there's one whispered even now in mine ear, and told me, Male opinentur de te homines, sed mali.  William Rowley.  


To Prince CHARLES'.  
PArdon (dread Prince) that I omit thy praise  
Amongst these dreary, sad, and funeral lays:  
In stead of praise I'll pray; stand noble Stem  
Successor to a fourfold Diadem.  
And may the Chronicle of thy great Name  
Triple old Nestor: take thy Brother's Fame,  
His Honours, titles, Virtues, and renown,  
And multiply their lustre with thine own:  
'bove all take this; may thy Age never see  
An Epicedion ensculpted for thee.  
When e'er thou front thy foes, let thy Fate run  
In Caesar's line, that never fought but won:  
Inherit all his glories, (not his fall)  
Heaven shield thee from the Roman Capital.  
Whilst I have breath, thus shall my duty sing,  
Be long a Prince before thou be a King:  
But being throned, thy Reign have ending never,  
Long Crowned with Gold, & then with Stars for ever.   

To Grief.  
Grief give me leave now to dis-bosome thee,  
Since all in vain I keep thee in my breast,  
Let some in smoky sighs condensed be  
And with the winds be hurried in unrest:  
But then divide that part in moisture lies,  
Let half fall from my pen, half from mine eyes.   

To Life.  

WHy didst thou leave a house, so fair, so sweet?  
Earth has no more such earth to lodge thee in,  
Such a Tent Royal, such a Royal seat,  
As if thou never shouldst have weary been.  
Shall I say (life) unkind to leave us so?  
O hadst thou stayed, but to be bidden go!   

If honour could have won thee, thou wert right;  
If youth, thou hadst a lovely mansion;  
If Beauty, mixture of the Roses might,  
That kept all Britain in an union.  
Could none of this? pardon, I had forgot,  
Thou flie'st to Heaven, 'cause we deserved thee not.    

To Death:  

THou great Monopolist, that all the world  
Engrosest to thyself, wilt thou spare none?  
Shall still thy mortal javelins forth be hurled  
With careless flight? a million for one  
Thou mightst have had: but (Tyrant) thou didst know  
To wound four Kingdoms, at one deadly blow.   

Thou mightst have had a sacrifice of tears,  
To stay thy cruel dart, the blow to break:  
So many Seas, to buy so many years  
When sickness first did thy first summons speak:  
O when that fearful blaze 'gan first to fly,  
I knew a loyal subject by his eye.    

To Death.  
Foe to thyself (rash fool) had he lived still,  
Thou mightst have marched with him into the field,  
And by his Royal side sated thy fill,  
(Gods foes, and his, falling before his shield)  
And being done, with triumphs in thy sting:  
Thou hast deposed a Prince, to crown him King.   

To the Grave.  

Unclasp thy womb, thou mortuary shrine,  
And take the worst part of the best we had,  
Thou hast no harbourage for things divine,  
That thou hadst any part was (yet) too bad.  
Graves, for the grave, are fit, unfit for thee  
Was our sweet branch of youthful Royalty.   

Thou must restore each Atom back again  
When that day comes, that stands beyond all night,  
His fame (mean while) shall here on earth remain:  
Lo thus we have divided our delight.  
Heaven keeps his spirit steled amongst the Just,  
We keep his memory, and thou his dust.    

An Epitaph.  
DId he die young? oh no, it could not be,  
For I know few that lived so long but he,  
Till God and all men loved him: then be bold;  
That man that lives so long, must needs be old.   

To N●●●●●●  
IN Brazen records shall thy fifth day stand,  
Bad Scholar was the sixth, to learn to spill  
What once the fifth had saved, yet heavens command,  
Both wrought, one good, the other (we say) ill.  
When life had six days laboured in his breast:  
He kept his Saboth and lay down and rest.   

To S. jamses.  
STand like the ruins of old Ilium,  
Lose thy canonised name in our complaint,  
Be no more james: for we'll adore but one,  
Who long must be a King, at length a Saint.  
Be now called nothing, but a heap of stone,  
Thy good name's lost, for why thy Saint is gone.   

To the King.  
THou Royal Tree from whence the Roses spring,  
Under thy shades may Britain ever sing:  
Right great and good, show now thy Royal might,  
Though thy top branch be lopped, still grow upright:  
Under thy grief Britianes lies sick in pain,  
But when thou joyest, they'll all sit up again.   
FINIS.