A Pindaric Ode UPON OUR LATE SOVEREIGN LADY OF Blessed Memory, Queen MARY.  
By EDWARD ARWAKER, Author of The Vision on the Death of King Charles.  
LONDON, Printed for Rich. Parker at the Unicorn, under the Piazza of the Royal Exchange, 1695.   

A Pindaric Ode, etc.  

I.  
SHe's dead, alas! beyond recovery dead!  
The Queen is dead in whom we lived,  
While all our Joys far as her Soul are fled,  
And scarce can sooner be retrieved:  
What then remains for Comfort or Relief,  
But a free Vent to our just Source of Grief?  
Descend, Britannia, from thy lofty Seat,  
Lay all the Ensigns of thy Grandeur down,  
Thy Robes, thy Sceptre, and thy Crown;  
Show thy concern, as its occasion, great.  
No more the mingled colours of thy Rose  
Shall their united Beauty boast,  
Since those her fairer Cheeks did once disclose,  
Are pale and withered, dead and lost.  
Call fair Albania to partake thy woe,  
For, as the Loss, she will the Sorrow share  
Whose Stings more pungent than her Thistles are  
Thy Handmaid, sad jerna, too  
A mournful Lamentation must prepare,  
Her Golden Lyre must now neglected lie  
Like those of Israel in exile;  
She, though long versed in feigned complaint,  
And in affected Mourning acquaint,  
Thro all the confines of her Isle  
Will raise a louder than her native Cry,  
Will real Sorrow to her Heart admit,  
And grieve in Tears no longer counterfeit.   

II.  
Let your loud Outcries reach the Belgic shore;  
Her Lion will with yours in Consort roar,  
And she will weep at the amazing sound,  
Till from the Floodgates of her Eyes  
Her Land is more in danger to be drowned,  
Than by the Tides that at her Sluices rise,  
For Grief her dear Maria breathless lies,  
For Grief her loved Maria is no more.  
She sought Maria, and obtained her young,  
Her Prince renowned in Council and in Arms,  
Who never any conqueror knew,  
Till he Maria's powerful Eyes did view,  
And found their influence too strong;  
Subdued by her resistless Charms,  
Courted this Treasure to enrich the Land,  
Whose value with her years increased,  
Did more and more the People's Hearts command,  
Who most esteemed her, as they knew her best;  
She blessed them early, and adorned them long,  
Till, to her native Soil recalled,  
By Christian, worse than Heathen Rome enthralled,  
She here did with transcendent lustre shine,  
Our Rights and our Religion did secure,  
Kept them inviolate, that firm and pure  
Our Practice by Example did refine.  
But Death has quenched our Israel's Light,  
Has robbed Britannia's Eyes of their Delight,  
Has snatched Albania's and Ierna's Joy,  
And disappointed Belgia's longing Sight.  
Since Fate does all your Bliss alike destroy,  
All should in Sorrow, as in Suffering join,  
And till her Body shall revive,  
Preserve her sacred Memory alive;  
Then loudly your confederate Voices raise,  
Mourn, mourn Maria's Fall, sing, sing, Maria's Praise.   

III.  
While we our sorrow for her loss express  
And with unbounded grief our own bewail,  
Well may we fear to find the passion fail,  
Rather than swell to an excess;  
For if a Deluge of incessant Tears  
And Pyramids of monumental Verse,  
Are but due Offerings at a worthy Hearse;  
To hers the Tribute should be largely paid,  
To hers, in whom all Excellence was found,  
In whom each Grace and Virtue did abound.  
All by which man is good or happy made:  
All to be valued or desired,  
All to be imitated or admired,  
All that for which the wisest Monarch prayed,  
All that which makes the Just, alive adored,  
And dead, as universally deplored,  
Humble as high, and affable as great,  
She did her Subjects as a Parent treat;  
To all their circumstances had regard,  
Supplied the needy, and the good preferred,  
The objects of her Pity or her Care.  
Did both, as both were wanted, share,  
Those found Relief, and these obtained Reward.  
This Practice, these Perfections of her Mind,  
Have made her dear, as she was good, to all;  
And do oblige, as they affect Mankind,  
To wait close Mourners at her Funeral.   

IV.  
For, oh! A fatal and a loathed Disease;  
Fatal to England heretofore,  
And justly hated for its Injuries,  
When it the Royal Blood did seize,  
Assoon as Heaven its Current did restore,  
And snatched our darling Gloucester from our eyes.  
Did Beauty on its Throne invade,  
Alike to Heaven, as her, and us unkind,  
Since Heaven was copied in her Face and Mind,  
Its Glory here, its Goodness there displayed.  
Daily the growing Malady prevailed,  
And weakening her, increased its strength;  
Till baffled Art fell to despair at length,  
To see how its Successless measures failed,  
And her Physicians by their Sighs and Tears,  
Declared the sad Presages of their Fears.   

V.  
Scarce could the chief Ambassador of Heaven,  
To whose reluctant tongue the Charge was given;  
Lay the Constraint on his abhorring Breath  
To vent the sad Preparative for Death;  
But what his faltering words could hardly speak  
Was not unwelcome to her Fars,  
She with a smile the fatal Summons hears  
With less concern, than he who brought it showed;  
And more unmoved, than they who listening stood;  
All Hearts, but hers, appeared with Grief to break,  
She in the Sentence no surprise did find,  
Nor now was to prepare to die:  
That mighty work was her great business made,  
How to perform it she did often try,  
And with less fervency for daily Bread,  
Than daily dying to the World, she prayed.  
Thus she heavens Gist, her Life, to Heaven resigned,  
As freely as the Sceptre from her Hand,  
Which in our Monarch's Absence well she swayed;  
Nor more to lose her Life, than Power, repined,  
But cheerfully her Prince and God obeyed,  
As ere she did the Realms they called her to, command.   

VI  
And now the Scene of Death's sad pomp appears,  
The Queen is from herself estranged,  
Her strength impaired, her lovely Visage changed,  
In every part she dying Symptoms bears.  
While the proud Conqueror insults her Face,  
Does Beauty's noblest Citadel surprise,  
Clouds all the darling Splendour of her Eyes,  
And triumphs over every captived Grace.  
Nassaw observed her yielding to the Foe,  
He saw, and dreaded Natures quick decay,  
And found his Courage baffled now;  
That Courage that did falling States support,  
And frighten Armies from the Field,  
Can to her succour find no way,  
But unsuccessful in its chief effort  
Itself does to the powerful Tyrant yield;  
Since he can bring Maria no relief,  
Since nothing for her safety can be done,  
He grows regardless of his own,  
Abandoned wholly to Excess of Grief;  
And to divert the Ravisher  
From his injurious force on her,  
Invites him rather on himself to prey,  
And swooning, hastes to meet him on the way.   

VII.  
Wisely the Tyrant to commit his Rape,  
Assumed this formidable shape,  
He could no other frightful Visage wear,  
In no dismaying Form but this appear,  
To shock undaunted Nassaw's daring Soul,  
Who oft, unmoved, had looked him in the Face;  
Oft! sought him out in every likely place;  
Among loud Cannon and their roaring Balls,  
In Camps entrenched, and well manned City Walls,  
While Showers of breaking Bombs fell round his Head,  
He saw the fierce destructive Lightning roll,  
Amidst the Danger, free from Dread;  
And could Death's Terrors every where despise  
But in his dear Maria's dying Eyes;  
There they a ghastly Vizard wore,  
Such as he never saw before.  
This dismal Object pierced his softened Heart,  
The Foe attacking thus his tenderest part,  
Soon made a Conquest o'er the whole:  
And now he first knew what it was to fear,  
Nor could have known it for himself, but her.   

VIII.  
Her he preferred to his own precious life,  
For she its greatest Blessing proved,  
And had not this attempt of Fate,  
Too well convineed him of her mortal state,  
Had he not thus been undeceived,  
He by her form and goodness had believed  
An Angel, not a Woman, was his Wife.  
So firmly, so entirely still they loved,  
That never two became more truly one:  
She had no will, but to her Lord's resigned,  
His Pleasure swayed the Empire of her mind;  
In every thing, they were so closely joined,  
That Death a nicer task did never know,  
Than how to make the separation,  
To kill the Wife, and not the Husband too.   

IX.  
Trembling and pale the Monarch near her stood,  
And as on her Death laid his Icy Hand,  
He felt its frosty chillness seize his Blood,  
Nor longer could, when she was falling, stand;  
Faintly he called to be removed,  
He could not go, and durst not stay  
To see her dying Pangs, whom he so dearly loved  
To see Maria forced away.  
Scarce was he carried from the wounding sight,  
When as if grieved with him to part,  
And that alone remained to break her Heart,  
As if displeased to see the light:  
She did her weary Ey-elids close,  
And in Death's cold Embraces fell asleep;  
But has alas! disturbed the World's repose,  
And left it cause for future Years to weep;  
While our lamenting Sovereign's sole Relief,  
Is in the numerous Partners of his Grief.   

X.  
Such Comforts, if there Comfort can be found,  
Do in his own and foreign Realms abound:  
All Lands wherein the doleful news is known,  
Will the vast loss with equal grief bemoan;  
All but the gallic Askelon.  
O never may the Rumour thither come!  
Mav every Tongue, that in those streers would spread  
The Fatal Tidings, that Maria's dead,  
For its reward be struck for ever dumb,  
Lest the insulting Daughters of our Foe,  
Pride in our Grief, and triumph in our Woe.   

XI.  
Yet vainly they shall at our Loss rejoice,  
For still Victorious Nassaw lives,  
Dispels our Fears, our Courages revives.  
The faithful Senate crowding round his Throne,  
Do recognize him with a general Voice,  
In dutiful Addresses bows,  
Fidelity and just Obedience vows;  
Nor do they promise him their aid in vain,  
Since they, in his, do their own Rights maintain;  
Such are the Blessings of his happy Reign.  
Supported thus, he shall our Arms advance  
To scourge the haughty Insolence of France;  
Shall her faint Hopes and fading Lilies blast,  
And make her dearly pay for her Injustice past.  
To France then let us all our thoughts transfer,  
And for adored Maria grieve no more,  
That happy Princess is above our Care,  
And we her change injuriously deplore;  
Since for a Mortal Diadem laid down,  
She shines in an immortal Crown,  
Entitled to it by her second Birth,  
And reigns a Queen in Heaven, who lived a Saint on Earth.   
FINIS.   

Price Four Pence.