AN ELEGY Upon the Honourable (the most Ingenious) HENRY GORGE, Son and Heir to the right Honourable the Lord GORGE;  
Who died of a Consumption, after a former Recovery.  

O Emptiness of expectations Here,  
When kindest to our thoughts, then most severe!  
O guilty Hopes, condemned as soon as born,  
Short beams of comfort from the blushing Morn!  
Our ripest Joys, all Natures best recruit  
But fair delusive Blossoms without fruit:  
Till death (uncertain too) doth all invade,  
Wrapped up in one black undistinguished shade.   

In vain our fancies measure Time or Place,  
Or any Motions of our mortal Rae;  
Imperfect Circles, always wheeling round  
Have no fixed Centre, no unerring Bound.  
In vain our thoughts postpone or antedate:  
No fixedness in any thing but Fate.   

Hope lately road triumphant o'er Despair,  
Like the days Chariot through the cloudless Air;  
Kind Health anatomised by long decay  
Had gained a 〈◊〉 C 〈…〉.  
Death seems resolved (despairing of his End)  
To quit the Field, and march away a friend.   

Accomplished now with Latin, Greek, and French,  
Religion, Prudence, Wit with Innocence;  
Our noble Youth (since reason well refined  
By Conversation had prepared his Mind)  
Must to the Western Aca●em● go  
And there his new life on the Arts bestow.  
All judged Oxford's Philosophy and Air  
Might both his Body and his Mind repair.  
Ind●ed it was time our new-made Man should try  
His nerves and locomotive Faculty.  

1 1. Theatre.  At first that glorious Fabric to his view  
Presents Time's various Treasures old and new  
Great S●●el●●●s wife munificence, to raise  
A Scene of Fame, and Monument of praise.  

2 2. Underground  Below the busy press, which Prudence well  
For spreading mischiefs has condemned to Hell.   

Next visit was the Muse's great 
3 3. Library  Divan,  
Remote from Rome, but nigh the Vatican,  
Where 
4 4. Selden against Tithes.  (Decimals summed up) now kindly meet  
Great Lawd and Selden, and old Bodley greet.   

Though well advanced in health he did not need  
Shrub, Root, or Herb, or some more sovereign weed;  
He must the Physic Garden walk, to see  
That Field of Art, and nature's Heraldry.   

His curious Soul did asters' Wonders pant,  
Which made him view That of the Vitall-plant;  
Saw it in coyness or in rage retreat,  
Impatient of defilement or defeat:  
Nature designed this Vegetive to be  
A special Emblem of His Ingeny.   

The Schools, the Colleges, the Chapels There,  
Gave him kind prospects of the heavenly Sphere.  
Nature Him Logic and the Physics taught,  
By Conversation to pure Ethics brought:  
If any Science could malignant be  
IT was (5) That abhors 
* Metaphysics,  Materiality.  
This by abstractive Engines might withdraw  
His nobler part, and cancel nature's Law  
But O unfortunate Relapse! He dies  
Before our former Joys had cleared our eyes.  
Now his brisk Soul (once circumscribed) is free  
I' th' College of a Boundless Trinity. 
Of that College.  Trinity.   

But Friends with fruitless tears lament his death  
Or hope to winnow back his precious breath;  
Nor love nor wisdom can this Saint retrieve  
As to Externals here but half alive:  
Whose Body to so fine thread was spun,  
His life had end, before his death begun,  
O it was an Orient Jewel, but alas  
Lodged in too fine a Cabinet of glass;  
Where in you might mirac'lously have seen  
A Spirit move without corporeal screen.  
Doubtless good Angels, when thy visits make  
To Saints below, such refined bodies take.   

A Christian Stoic only rich within,  
Had mortal weakness, but no mortal sin;  
Was Man too soon, for Heaven too early sit  
Both mortal and immortal by his Wit.  
A Youth in years, but full of age in merit,  
Took Heaven, and left us Worms the Earth t'inherit,  
heavens Heir can lack no Time, nor can there be  
Pupils or Nonage in Eternity.   

Farewell thou little Man, but Giant Saint,  
Now worthy of our triumph not complaint:  
We'll weep no more, but save our useless tears  
To mourn ourselves hung betwixt hopes and fears.   

Blessed Saint, in kindness pity Us, That we  
(Heaven knows how long) must want both Heaven & Thee.   By J.C.  

Printed in the year MDCLXXIV. 79.