TO THE RIGHT Worshipful Sir Thomas Erskene Knight, Gentleman of the late Princes privy Chamber. * ⁎ *  

THose timeless tears on his untimely fall,  
Who, in his time, bred solace to us all,  
If aught, that's worth the reading, therein be,  
Duty should bid me dedicate to thee.  
But since there's nought but sighs, and tears, and groans,  
Nor half so much of those as fits our moans.  
And yet such as they are, I do not see,  
To whom they rather do belong then thee,  
Then thee; whose interest in his life was most,  
And hath by death so dear a Master lost,  
As time's unable to produce his Peer,  
Nor ever did, nor ever shall I fear.  
For whom I sighed out those disordered groans,  
For Mourners keep no method in their moans,  
But as the passion is conceived in thought  
Abruptly, so into the world'tis brought.  
Mourning's a natural motion in the heart,  
And scorns to be reformed by rules of Art.  
Then (worthy Knight) such as they are, receive them,  
For were they better, none but thou should have them,  
And when my mourning muse shall change anew,  
This sable habit in a brighter hue,   

I'll urge my utmost vain, to bring to light  
Some work more worthy of your Worship's sight.   
Your Worships assured to command, ROBERT ALLYNE.   

FUNERAL ELEGIES upon the most lamentable death of the thrice illustrious Prince Henry, Prince of Wales, etc.  

Ebb channels roar, deep streams in silence run:  
Small woes have words, but mighty cares be mute.  
Speech can express some shallow mourner's moan,  
But dare not undertake deep forrows suit,   

Only salt tears, and windy sighs disclose  
Some airy vapours of our warrie woes.   

Immortal springs of in-exhausted tears,  
Shall have their moisture first exhausted dry,  
Eolian winds which from dark caves appears  
Shall sigh out all their substance in the sky,   

Before they can lament his loss too much,  
Who dying left not earth another such.   

What cannot eloquence by sweet detection  
Make most profoundly in our senses sink,  
Having attained such exquisite perfection,  
As to express more than the heart can think:   

Yet neither tongue, nor mind can speak, nor mean,  
The half of half the loss which we sustain.   

Why should deep cares be scanted thus in speech,  
Why should not worlds of words attend our woes,  
Which might to th'earth's remotest borders stretch,  
To pierce the flinty breasts of proudest foes,   

Whence floods of tears might gush to mourn his fall,  
Whose dear example doth concern us all.   

Who while his Father ruled this mighty land  
With heavenly wisdom is our Supreme head,  
He might have been unto that head a hand,  
His forces through another world to lead.   

Whose glorious conquests in the continent,  
The glory of our Island might augment.   

While his victorious Father here at home,  
Ruled his proceed by divine directions,  
Till both made famous by the fall of Rome,  
Had been admired for the earths perfections.   

Ah than could death have never comed too soon,  
Nor half those tear: been spent upon his tomb.   

But in the golden morning of his age,  
To be bereft by death before his time;  
Whom nature had but shown as on a stage,  
To be so much admired in his prime:   

Lest if he had attained to further fame,  
The worlds four Monarchies had lost their name.   

That we by building up our hopes too high,  
Might, bejng frustrate, catch the deeper fall,  
Whom nature now beginning to envy,  
Would turn our painted joys to bitter gall;   

Permitting that brave Prince t'approachapproach no nearer,  
That after death his loss might be the dearer.   

Blind, touchles, tasteles, deaf, and senseless snake,  
Where were thy eyes, thy ears, thy senses gone:  
O 'tis too true, when thou those wounds did make,  
Nor eyes, nor ears, nor senses thou hadst none.   

For if thou hadst, (ah cruelest of vipers)  
His fall had ne'er bred such a world of weepers.   

Hadst thou but seen how brave he ruled his stead.  
With what a whirlwind he did shake his spear,  
With what a Princely grace he bore his head,  
What Majesty did in his looks appear,   

The least of those, if thou hadst eyes to see,  
Had thrown the forceles dart from trembling thee.   

Hadst thou (ungentle elf) had ears to hear him,  
In modest manly speech his mind disclose;  
Thy fatal dart had ne'er had force to dear him,  
Or if smell, touch, or taste, or all of those,   

Or any of them all, could thee withstand  
Thy steel had sure fallen harmless from thy hand.   

Either thou meanest to throw all mortals down.  
To empty th'earth beginning at the best.  
Or else all deadly hate in one to crown,  
And never after to annoy the rest.   

Or is there one that rules above thy head,  
Who with a thought can strike a mortal dead.   

O sure there is, he for our grievous sins  
Bereft our dearest hope, and for our sake,  
God at his own house judgement oft begins,  
The head bejng hurt, to make the members quake.   

Whom to contain this I'll was all too strait;  
Him heavens thought worthy of a higher seat.   

Of whom may well be said as in the story,  
Was said by Philip many years before,  
Of his brave Child, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,  
And true it proved; but we may say't much more▪   

Not Macedon, nor Britain, but the earth  
Was all too base to hold so great a birth.   

Go death, and mount in victories amain,  
Disperse thy conquests in a woeful volume,  
Amongst th'insulting sons of Ottomaine,  
How Christendom hath lost her chiefest column.   

haply those paynims shall applaud the same,  
And raise eternal trophies of thy shame.   

Go dull the ears of Antichristian Rome,  
With sweeter music than the earth can yield;  
Whose Bow'ls did late within her breast consume,  
To see great Britain's heir to brave the field   

Against proud Babel, and her champion Spain,  
T'have brought the Gospel in request again.   

Tell thou hast brought to his untimely tomb,  
One who in time had com'de t'have worn the crown  
Of Britain, and thrown down the walls of Rome,  
And laid them level with the lowest ground.   

And all that envi'de at great Britain's bliss,  
Shall change their mourning, and rejoice at this.   

But Britain shall consume herself in tears,  
And bathe her woeful face in floods of brine,  
Nor shall the da●e of days, nor months, nor years  
Confine her grief, until by grace divine,   

Our young succeeding Prince express in time  
The high worth which the world expected of him.   

And o (God grant) he may perform no less,  
Nay rather may so far exceed his brother,  
As he in highest gifts of hopefulness,  
And Princely virtues did surpass all other.   

That once great Britain, and the world may utter,  
That Henry died but to admit his better.   

And truly if the eye, and brow, and face,  
Do not deceive the sense with false conceits,  
Which bear I know not what Majestic grace;  
But greater far than shines in lower states.   

How far the lions looks exceeds the Lambs,  
So far thy show brave Prince excels a man's.   

If these deceive not, as indeed they do not,  
These rules of Phisnom'e cannot wrong inform.  
What though thy years do promise what they own not;  
Yet more than they have promised they'll perform.   

And (o would God) I might but live to see,  
That hope effected, which all conceive of thee.   

That yet our Barbarous enemies in the East,  
Within the Empire of old Babylon,  
And that proud mystic Babel in the West,  
That holds the cup of fornication,   

By whose vile dregs the Kings on earth are drunk,  
May be in deep of dark confusion sunk.   

How shined great Britain's Lamps of late so clear.  
Like Planets in their opposite aspects,  
While Father's rays upon his son did peer,  
Resuming splendour from his sons reflects.   

Which glorious lights the world did late admire,  
Reciprocating betwixt the son and sire.   

Lending, and borrowing from each others light,  
As Phoebus throws his rays upon the Moon,  
Who represents his person in the night,  
Then yields her splendour when her course is done.   

To him, from whom she borrowed all her glore,  
Yet lost no light by her, but gained the more.   

No more the great Apollo of this I'll  
Did lose his light jmpartinged to his son,  
But gained a greater glory all the while,  
While all redoubled, back again did run.   

By Rays of which reciprocating light,  
This Isle had always day, and knew no night.   

Till death by interposing his dark hand,  
Did intercept those beams, and hold them back.  
Which spread a dark eclipse o'er all this land,  
And changed all brightness in Cimmerian black.   

By those great Luminaries dire defects  
Portending most prodigious effects.   

Which God averte, and turn upon our foes,  
Lest doubtless this small I'll at length become  
A boundless continent of endless woes,  
Reaping the just desert of threatened doom.   

Since Gods long suffering is at length outrun,  
Whose judgements at his own house are begun,   

God grant our sins procure no greater wrath  
Upon our heads, but that we once may turn  
To true repentance, by a lively faith,  
And for our many sins sincerely mourn,   

That God may in his mercy yet restore  
This darkened Island to her former glore.   

And in the person of our tender Prince  
Renew those lamps of discontinued light,  
Which have been drowned in darkness ever since  
That worthy Prince did bid the world good-night.   

Let never this small Isle, while heavens remain,  
Be darked with such a dire eclipse again.   

And though the bravest branch be cut away,  
Yet seat the root most steadfast in his place,  
To shine from Thames, and Trent, to Forth, and Tay,  
Eternal in his never ruin'd race.  
From whence while earth endures may still be one,  
To rule th'united Isle of Ath●●●.  
So long as Tay, and Forth. and Tr●●●, and Thames.  
Irrignates this I'll with christ all streams.   

¶ In Effigiem Principis.  

SWeet senseless stone that sensibly expresseth  
A Prince's person, in his mortal days,  
So artificial, that each one confesseth,  
The carvers curious pains deserveth praise;   

That one small sparkle of Promethean fire,  
Might make thy breathless body move, and spire.   

That since th'immortal substance of his soul  
Hath gained by death an everlasting crown,  
And endless fame his virtues doth enrolled  
In registers of never darked renown;   

His earthly parts which only mortal Bee,  
May live, and be immortaliz'de in thee.   

That no part of so great a worth should perish,  
But all be clothed with incorruption,  
Whose soul, bones, virtues, heavens, art, fame do cherish  
Against death, rottenness, and oblivion.   

While either heavens, or art, or fame shall live,  
No part of those three parts shall not survive.   

While thou pure marble shalt possess a place,  
Amongst the best of English Potentates  
And with thy Princely presence there shalt grace  
The glorious crew of great Plantagenets.   

Where Henries, Edward's, Richards, still survive.  
In Marble bodies as they seemed alive.   

Why then though art can save from earth's corruption,  
The earths own body, which is due to worms:  
Yet cannot so paint out the Souls perfection,  
A greater task than Painter's art performs,   

To brave oblivion with his memory,  
Concerns the sacred art of Poetry   

And (o would God) some Orpheus might arise,  
Whose powerful verse did move deaf Rocks to hear him,  
While Beasts, and Birds, and Stones, and Plants, and Trees,  
And Nymphs, and Fawns came thronging to be near him.   

Let such a one in golden lines set forth  
The image of his souls admired worth.   

If gazers swarm about his picture so,  
To mark the sweet resemblance of his face:  
What troops, what worlds of men should seek to know  
A mirror of his virtues, and his grace.   

While one amongst the rest that viewed his tomb  
Distilling tears should thus the rest inform.   

Hear lies (but Ah how can he lie so low?  
Who living still aspired to be high.)  
Yet here he lies, (and doth his soul also?  
No sure it mounts jmmortall thorough the sky)   

Hear lies (why then where are his virtues gone?  
And are those too in toomb'de within this stone.)   

Once more, here lies the body of a Prince,  
Whom nature graced with such divine perfection,  
That all that e'er were borne before, or since,  
Did choose him for their chief by rare election.   

Famous for learning, valour, wisdom, worth:  
Royal by virtue, beauty, bounty, birth.   

Whose childhood promised greater hope of praise,  
Then ever Prince attained in his time,  
Whose virtues made the fame of former days  
Obscured in the springtide of his prime.   

Till nature doubting so great growth in strength,  
Should have surpasde even nature's self at length.   

Did cut him off by death, before his day,  
Who even in dying, triumph'de o'er that elf,  
Ah whither am I carried, here j'll stay,  
Lest following him too far, I lose myself,   

Sith mortal pens unworthy are to write,  
And too too base to treat a theme so great.  
Sweet bones within your tomb, rest still in store,  
Till God rejoin you to the soul in glore.    


Epitaphium.  
Two kingdoms strone for Interest in one Prince,  
Heavens claimed me from them both, and reft me hence;  
Scotland my Cradle, England hath my Horse,  
The Heavens my Soul, my Virtues live in verse.   

2.  
I lived three Kingdoms hope, foes terror, Parent's life,  
I died their dearest loss, their joy, their endless grief.     

To the Kings most excellent Majesty.  

GReat mighty Monarch of this mourning Isle,  
Whose grief is ours, or ours is thine, or rather  
Both wail but one grief, in a different style,  
Thou mourning for a Son, we for a Father,   

Yet all but one, who both was borne to be  
A Sire to us, but first a Son to thee.   

Our bliss, our bale is borrowed but from thine,  
For when thou weep'st, than we are drowned in tears:  
And when some signs of joy begin to shine  
In thy bright looks, than mirth in us appears.   

Not swerving once from thee in this, nor that,  
As if upon thy brow we read our fate.   

Then if thou tenders (as no doubt thou does)  
Our weal (great King) lament his death no more  
Who cannot die, and then we cannot choose  
But do the same, that thou hast done before.   

Look on thy living Son, and thou shalt see  
A lively mirror both of him, and thee.  
Then in the Lethe of his christ all eyen.  
Entomb the thought of both our grief, & thine.    

To the Queen's Majesty.  

WHo seeks (great Queen) with words t'assuage thy woes,  
Would stop the Seas strong tide, with sticks, and stroes.  
That overflowing Ocean in thy breast  
Must have free course, till high springtides be past,  
Yet when that planet's power begins to wane,  
Solatious words may calm those storms again.  
On this sad subject still thy mind doth run,  
And only this that thou hast lost a Son,  
And such a Son as never Lady lost,  
Of whose match earth dare not be bold to boast.  
'tis all most true, and therefore all the earth  
Was all unworthy of so great a worth.  
More worthy far to reign with Saints in Heavens,  
Then sit on earth to judge twixt odds, and evens.  
Yet lived he long, although his life seemed short,  
That Ship sails most that soonest gets her Port.  
He dies not soon that still on death is musing,  
Life's measured, not by time, but by times using.  
Mean men and Princes, all were borne to die,  
Death's the last line of mortal misery,  
The end of wandering, and the door of rest;  
Where he that soonest comes, his lot is best.  
Then for a death so happy, to be sorry,  
Is nothing, but to envy at his glory.  
Though thou (great Queen) hath lost what thou held dearest,  
Yet two survive, that to his worth come nearest,  
Who now unmatched, were once surmatched by him,  
But since no other to that height can climb,  
Sweet royal Imps grow still more clear and purer,  
Since he is gone, whose worth made yours obscurer.  
Unmatched now, but only each by other,  
An unmatched Sister to a matchless Brother.   

And after many years, and months, and days,  
Live both to close your dying Parents eyes.    

To Prince CHARLES.  

ADmired Phoenix, springing up apace,  
From th'ashes of another Phoenix bones,  
Which (too too courteous) yielded thee his place,  
Lest earth were burdened with two birds at once   

Of that rare kind, which loves to live alone,  
Whose only essence is to be but one.   

'Twas needful (so heavens fatal verdict runs)  
The first to die, the last spring from his embers.  
Heaven's bounds (though boundless) cannot hold two sons,  
Nor earth contain two (more than) alexander's,   

And both so great, that yet the earth doth groan  
To bear so great a burden as the one.   

And since Heavens have allotted thee to live,  
Brave Prince, the mirror both of th'one, & th'other,  
So Heavens I wish may to thy glory give  
Joined with thine own, the virtues of thy Brother.   

That thou a twofold Phoenix may attain,  
A Phoenix race of years on earth to reign.    

To the Lady ELIZABETH.  
Mirror for Ladies, in whose life contend  
Virtue, and beauty, which should grace the most,  
Long may their strife continue, without end,  
To grace thee still, till life, and all be lost.  
Which after many years, and days, be done  
When fruitful Rhine is covered with thy seed,  
That from thy royal breast may spring some one,  
The living image of our Prince that's dead.  
Then thou may say, sweet Youth, proceed in praise,  
Such was thy Princely Uncle in his time,  
Such may thou be, but having longer days,  
That all thy life may equal but his prime,  
Which if it do, I boldly dare divine,  
No others life shall ever equal thine.  
That both of you, when he those words shall here,  
May to his memory sacrifice a tear.   

To the Prince PALATINE.  

THe fame (brave Prince) of wonders in our Isle,  
Sprung from the Thames, astonished the Rhine;  
That all Rhines dainties in thine eyes seemed vile,  
To view those wonders that were thought divine,   

Which when thou crossed the raging Seas to see  
This I'll a little Heaven did seem to be.   

Where three great lights all in a sphere did shine,  
From one great main light borrowing their aspects,  
No cloud came nigh to cross th'ecliptic line,  
They by his rays, he bright by their reflects.   

On whom shined back the beams from all the three,  
Like Rivers paying tribute to the Sea.   

But at thy coming came those dire defects,  
That dimmed the greatest light that graced our day,  
And thou to breed a second sad eclipse,  
Would lead the second of the two away.   

Yet do great Prince, for what thou meanest to do,  
Is but t'jngraft another with the two,  
That three (though sundered) yet may no less shine,  
O'er all the bounds betwixt the Thames and Rhine.   
FINIS.