AN ODE In Imitation of PINDAR ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS Earl of Ossory  
By K. C.  
Pindar Olymp. Od. 6. 

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LONDON, Printed for Samuel Carr at the King's Head in S. Paul's Churchyard, 1681.   

AN ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE Earl of Ossory.  

I.  
What Strains at Pisa, or Ismene's Spring,  
The Swan that often sung with tuneful breath,  
To his Aeolian Harp, did sing  
Of God, of Hero, or of Heavenborn King,  
With Verses cheaply purchased by death:  
Or rather (since to a pious Hero we,  
Just, though late Oblations bring)  
What Tears the Muse's Prophet Royal shed  
On Saul's anointed head,  
And thought a Crown poor recompense for a Friend:  
When by a power miraculous he  
(The power of Faith and Poetry)  
Upon the Clouds an Interdict did lay,  
And bid Mount Gilboa  
To rear his naked Back all parched to the Sky:  
Such Numbers Priestesses of fame inspire,  
Such Ossory does deserve, such Charles desire;  
Such Flanders bloody Plains, and Mons, and British Seas require.  
And ye Poetic Candidates of Fame,  
If you would build a lasting Name,  
This Subject choose; as the dark Womb  
Of the old Prophets Vital Tomb  
Could Life restore, so Ossory's, Life can give,  
And by his Genius many an Age even this dead Verse shall live.   

II.  
Then tell, ye Heavenly Sisters, ye can tell,  
(For we below  
In the dark Vale of Hearsay dwell,  
And nothing know)  
Tell when great Ossory's enlarged Shade  
Through Heaven's Arch his Triumphant Entry made,  
How Noble Brutus ancient Race  
(To show peculiar Worth peculiar Grace)  
Rose up and offered the first place.  
Tell how the Sainted Hero (whom  
The pious Tales of Fabulous Rome  
Greater to make have almost nothing made)  
Embraced his Successor; and swear  
None worthier did his Mystic Ensigns wear. 
The George and Garter.   
Tell how the Nymphs that with soft Silver Oars  
Ply round th' Ebudes, and cold Mona's Shores,  
Or the Seas Oracle, the Mouth of Thames,  
The noble Shanons, or short Liffy's Streams,  
Their Guardian did lament, and tear  
Their Sea-green Hair,  
This second grief to great Pan's death th'afflicted Nymphs did hear.  
Bid sad Juverne raise a Monument  
As Teneriff high, wide as her Isle's extent,  
Bid her be sure her Title prove,  
Lest her pretence as fabulous seem as lying Crete's to Jove.   

III.  
Nature when first commissioned brisk ad gay,  
When the blessed Earth saluted newborn Day,  
And the World's Eye, the youthful Sun,  
Unspotted with ill Sights his race did run,  
Profuse, in Birds and Flowers her art did show,  
She painted then the gaudy Bow:  
But most in Man, (whom we her Abstract call)  
She of the precious stuff was prodigal:  
Her Kings but few removes from Jove, her Prince's Hero's all.  
But now (so sparingly that seed sh'has sown,  
The Soil spent, or she covetous grown,  
Or Vice hath spoiled the Strain, or Fate  
Hath given the World for desperate)  
Sh'hath shrunk the short dimensions of a Man,  
And to an Inch reduced our Span,  
A Number, an inglorious Rout,  
Faint shadows of our Ancestors, alas! we stack about!  
And if by a mighty effort she  
Produce to the world one Ossory,  
(Like Stars which in our Hemisphere  
Gazed at, half known, straight disappear)  
So late he enters, so soon quits the Stage,  
He leaves a Nation desolate, and quite undoes the Age.   

IV.  
Early young Ossory entered Virtue's race,  
Swiftly began, yet still increased his pace;  
And when no other Rival he could find,  
Strove with himself, and left himself behind.  
With unconfirmed steps t'his Prince he went  
Into a noble Banishment,  
The Country then of all was excellent.  
But sure the Stars and Fortune have  
Small influence on the virtuous and the brave;  
Even Poison turns to wholesome meat,  
By Virtue's strong digestive heat.  
The more 'gainst Hercules' Stepdame Juno strove,  
The more she proved the mighty Seed of Jove.  
The Policy of Tiber and the Arne,  
The Courtship of the Seine and Marne.  
What solid serious the sage Hebre hath,  
And Germany of ancient faith,  
With British Gallantry conjoined,  
Did in the Chymic Furnace of his Mind  
A high Elixir make than each more precious and refined.   

V.  
As when the Annual Chaos, Winter, flies,  
Whilst the soft Pleyades do mount the Skies,  
And Philomela to Western gales does sing  
The Advent of the Heavenborn Spring,  
Such joy blest Charles did to his Subjects bring.  
Then many a Hero whom no Storms could shake,  
Who from his Sufferings did new courage take,  
Dissolved in the soft Lap of Pleasure lay,  
As Ice, the Winter's Child, in a warm day  
Is by the amorous Sunbeams kissed away.  
But not so Ossory, christallized his Mind  
Fortune adverse did brave, disdaned her kind.  
Not Amoretta to the Alcove,  
Or Park the conscious Mart of Love,  
Not so t' a Prince's Cabinet with first light,  
Speeds an impeached pale-faced Favourite,  
As you where honourable danger lay,  
And to the Temple of high fame did mark the craggy way.   

VI  
Go, thy winged Chariot, quickly Muse, prepare,  
Lo, a vast Fleet consumes the Eastern Air;  
Her Creature, they great Britain's Rights invade;  
See what returns for Liberty they've made!  
Viperous Brood! but Vipers we do find  
Belied; Ingratitude's proper to Mankind.  
Embark i'th' Ship where Ossory goes,  
To check the Parricidal Foes:  
Not as the Grave Venetian takes his way,  
With many a Barge, and many a Gondola;  
Whilst painted Bucentore in state does move,  
And to the Adriatic Maid makes love.  
As Jove he comes to th' Theban Dame,  
Dreadfully gay with Light'ning pointed flame:  
Unhappy they who to his embraces came,  
One would have thought t'have heard his Cannon roar,  
Aetna were torn from the Trinacrian Shore;  
And freed Typhaeus a new War did move  
Against the upper and the nether Jove.  
The Nereids trembled in their watery Bed,  
In the Isles roots they hid their Head,  
And (like the Hollanders) aghast from their own Guardian fled.   

VII.  
But narrow is one Element,  
Compared to a well formed Souls extent;  
Narrow the starry Firmament.  
Fate brings (to keep the balance of the Age)  
With Monsters equal Hero's on the Stage:  
The Western Sultan powerful grows,  
A Torrent, all things overflows;  
But Mons in bloody Characters his fatal limits shows  
You checked the Monarch in his swift Career,  
Fierce Luxemburg wondered, and learned to fear;  
Alas! he knew not Ossory was there.  
Sad the ripe Harvest of his Fame he yields,  
The Harvest of so many bloody Fields.  
To merit such a Conqueror long he grew  
And gathered Laurels to be worn by you;  
Cursing just Heaven, dropping with bloody sweat  
The sad remains withdraws of his Defeat,  
And more than all his Victories he valew's this Retreat.   

VIII.  
Great Excellence oft proves dangerous to a State,  
A Comet Virtue that's hung out by Fate,  
To it self and others ruin does create.  
But silent he, yet active as the Day,  
Born to command, yet willing to obey.  
Nature to him the happy temper gave,  
Courteous he was as prosperous Love,  
Gentle as Venus' gentlest Dove,  
In fight beyond a fancied Hero brave.  
Thou Virgin Mother-Church, which now dost ride  
The swelling Surges of a double Tide,  
Safe only because dashed on either side,  
O what a Friend now in thy day  
Hath Fate in Ossory snatched away!  
And ye who holy Friendship do adore,  
His Equal you will never see, before  
You Ossory shall in Heaven rejoin, ne'er to be parted more.   

IX.  
Accursed Fever, Death's sharp-poisoned Dart,  
Accursed Fruit, accursed Earth,  
Which to the fatal Tree gave birth;  
What Mine of strange confusion have you laid  
In the most regular Breast which ere was made!  
Those Eyes, from which swift Lightning once did part,  
To melt the tempered Steel, or harder Heart,  
Like wasting Meteors now portend  
With bloodshot Beams his own approacing end.  
The Seat where Honours Records lay,  
Where was designed the fall of Africa,  
(Scarce Heavens Decrees more firmly set than they)  
Like Parchments in the Fire now shrink away.  
Those Purple Waves, which like te Nile  
From his undiscovered Head  
Health and fresh Honours on its Soil did shed,  
And bid all Egypt smile;  
Now with Vaesuvian Waves scorch all their way,  
And to the King o'th' Little World a Mortal Tribute pay. 
His Heart.    

X.  
Injustly we do blame the Sovereign Law,  
Which all things to their proper place does draw.  
Full ripe for Heaven he spurned the Earth,  
The monumental seat of miscalled Birth.  
No Art, no Violence, can control  
(Though on it Ossa you, and Pelion role)  
Th'ascending motion of a Heavenborn Soul.  
His Fever like Elias Fiery Car,  
(Whilst the sad Prophets mourn him from afar)  
Kindled his Funeral Pile into a Star.  
Others may praise the Feats of mortal breath,  
But I the opportunity of death.  
He saw not popular Fury threat the Stage,  
Nor Epidemic Madness seize the Age.  
He lived not till his Wreaths did grow  
Withered and pale upon his Brow,  
As Pompey and great Scipio.  
Few, Heavens choice Favourites, the privilege have,  
To bring their Fame untainted to their Grave.  
Who the wild passions knows of human kind,  
Fortune and false Mortality  
This truth will find,  
When wanted most and best beloved 'tis happiest then to die.   
FINIS