AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN.  
By C. D. Rector of K. in S.  
Agrestem tenui— Virg.  
LONDON: Printed for John Chamberlain, Bookseller in St. Edmunds-Bury; and are to be Sold by Peter Parker, at the Leg and Star in Cornhill, and John Whitlock near Stationers-Hall. MDCXCV.   

TO THE KING.  

SINCE now, Great Sir, Addresses come in shoals,  
And every one Your mighty Loss Condoles:  
Vouchsafe, among the rest, not to refuse  
The mean Oblation of a Rustic Muse.  
'Tis Coarse indeed; yet sacred Stories tell,  
Goat's hair from Peasants once was taken well.  
'Tis Rough; and yet it is confessed by all,  
Unpolished Grief is still most Natural.  
A Poet's name the Author dares not boast;  
The Court and City have that Style engrossed.  
Yet when the Subject can alone infuse,  
And very Sorrow can create a Muse:  
When Poetry in mighty showers comes down,  
And every Plash becomes a Helicon;  
What wonder if some drops of this Inspiring Rage  
Light on a Levites humble Hermitage?   

May You, like that Restorer of our Race,  
After this Deluge, see a World's new Face:  
May Glorious Triumphs blot out all your Woe,  
And where the Cypress stands may Laurels grow:  
May Tears, like Dew, precede Illustrious Days,  
And passing Tolls but usher peals of Praise:  
May shouting Trumpets drown the mournful Lyre,  
And Victory each pensive Breast inspire;  
Till Elegies in Paeans terminate,  
And all, that now Condole, Congratulate.  
So he who cloven the Waves with his Almighty Wand,  
And led the trembling Host upon the Sand;  
Silenced the Cries of the despairing Throng;  
First led them through the Flood, than sung the glorious Song.    

AN ELEGY ON THE QUEENS Death, who Died, December 28. 1694.  

I.  
IF to be Good, and Great,  
Could plead Exemption from the Rules of Fate:  
If Majesty with Love combined,  
And the whole Band of Virtues joined,  
That Heaven did e'er bestow on Womankind:  
If Charms that Ravished every Eye,  
And could subdue at once both Friend and Enemy:  
If so Sublime a Goodness as might move  
Envy itself to praise, and Spite itself to love;  
Could mitigate the Laws of Destiny:  
Our Sighs had all been spared, and all our Eyes been dry.   

II.  
In vain we wish, we hope in vain  
To break the Adamantine Chain.  
So far, alas! So weak are we  
To combat heavens Decree;  
That, what we strive to keep, away doth soon flee.  
So that fair Plant, whose Climbing Branches spread  
A Canopy upon the scorched Prophet's Head;  
How soon the same Almighty Hand that reared  
The goodly Bower, a Worm prepared,  
By which in one short night  
It perished quite,  
And, like the Sunburnt Seer, lay withered.   

III.  
But how shall we express  
In decent dress  
Our bleeding Griefs? What sighs, what moans,  
What dying groans,  
Sufficient are our Sorrows to confess?  
Alas! We need no further look,  
Our Swooning Prince  
May us enough convince,  
Who of our mighty Loss the truest Measures took.  
Th' undaunted Hero, whom before in all  
Its various shapes Death never could appall;  
Yet sunk beneath the weight of this twice-fatal stroke.   

IV.  
Never was Sorrow drawn in Lines more true:  
For when his Consort drew  
Her dying breath,  
He thought he could not rightly mourn her death,  
Unless by dying too.  
As once that famous Bard his loved Eurydice  
Resolved to follow to the Elysian shade;  
So gladly He  
A Journey thither would have made.  
And, had not Britain's Guardian Angel stayed  
The hasting Lover: He infallibly,  
Dropped by her Side,  
A willing Sacrifice had died,  
Beyond Recovery.   

V.  
Thus, when in fatal Node  
Both Luminaries make their dark abode,  
And gloomy Cynthia clouds her Husband's Head,  
Th' Eclipsed Sun lies dead;  
Until the labouring Orb affords him aid,  
Moved by the Influence  
Of some benign Intelligence,  
And drags the fainting Planet through the shade.   

VI  
The Crystal Thames no more  
Her grief declares,  
As she was wont before,  
In rolling Groans, and liquid floods of Tears:  
But stops her Course, and wrapped in Icy bands,  
At this Amazing News, like Statue stands,  
Or like the famous Niobe of old.  
And well indeed may we  
Conceive her now to be  
With Grief Congealed, rather than with Cold.   

VII.  
Belgia, whose humble Soil, from Neptune's Empire gained,  
Is so Precariously retained,  
As if she were but Tenant of the Fee,  
And at the watery Monarch's Courtesy.  
From Floods of Grief now fears a Deluge more,  
Than from the overlooking Waves she did before.  
The Rhine, the Maes, and Scheld  
With Sorrow swelled,  
Disdain their Channels now, and range the Country over.  
So bright, while she Conversed there,  
Our Mary's Virtue shone,  
It gilded all the misty Region.  
Her Sweetness rendered her to all so dear,  
The very Memory of Her  
Perfumes the fenny Soil, and purifies the Air.   

VIII.  
Nor less the fatal Sound  
Smites and Affects the whole Alliance round.  
Each Prince and State,  
By Friendship, or by Interest before,  
Are now in Sorrow too Confederate,  
And furnish out their Quota's to the Common Store.  
Cemented now with Tears the League doth stronger grow;  
As Hannibal of yore  
Perpetual Enmity upon the Altar swore:  
So to the gallic name each Kingdom, State,  
And Potentate,  
Before her Sacred Shrine Immortal hatred Vow.  
And even those Neutral States, whose Policy  
Makes them in War but Standards by,  
From their own wary Maxims swerve,  
And now without Reserve,  
In this great Cause of Grief, renounce Neutrality.  
Yea Envious France, itself, forced by her Virtue, pays  
A Tribute to her Praise,  
And some unwilling Tears upon her Ashes lays.  
So when the mighty Herbrew, Egypt's Viceroy, went  
To solemnize  
The aged Patriarches Obsequies,  
And bear his Ashes to the sacred Monument;  
(See what a Virtue so sublime can do!)  
Miscreant Egyptians bore a part, and mourned too,   

IX.  
Our drooping Court half dead with Sorrow seems;  
And well it may, of half its Soul deprived.  
Well may it shine with faint and dusky beams,  
Of half its Splendour now bereaved.  
We now with wonder think, when William o'er the Main  
To head the numerous fight Train,  
For half the Year was gone;  
How oft She with a skill almost Divine,  
And with a Courage more than Feminine,  
Managed, as well as filled, the Throne.  
And, when she deigned her Presence to afford,  
Inspired, and taught, as well as graced the Council-Board.  
So well in Her  
Our Prince did still appear;  
We scarcely thought him Absent, when he was not here.  
So; when the setting Sun the Ocean's Arms embrace,  
And Cynthia takes his place;  
Oft with her silver Streams  
She draws so fair a Copy of his sprightly Beams;  
Our puzzled Sense  
Can scarce discern the difference.  
Deluded by the bright vicarious Ray,  
The Labourer goes to work, the Youth to play:  
The Scholar reads; the Traveller pursues his way;  
And all are ready to mistake, and call it Day.   

X.  
London the Glory of our Isle,  
Unable now to smile,  
Has laid aside  
Her Gaieties and Pride,  
And is become but one  
Long Funeral Procession.  
Her Streets from East to West,  
With gloomy Hue,  
Like some dark Night-piece show,  
Or Horrors ghastly Scene with crowds of Mourners dressed.  
Scarce did she look more sad when newly burned;  
To Ashes then, and now to Sackcloth turned.   

XI.  
The very Infant Throng,  
The Streets along,  
In broken Accents lisp their Moans,  
And, as they go, with Tears bedew the Stones,  
Which moistened seem to weep by sympathy,  
As if they meant to signify,  
Should these forbear the very Stones would cry.  
And well She may  
By Innocents' lamented be;  
None sure more Innocent than She,  
Whom Heaven took hence,  
To Canonize her Innocence,  
Upon that very Day.   

XII.  
All Ranks and Qualities agree  
To make this Sorrow general.  
No more will Garbs or Colours now distinctions be;  
The Mourning Garb and Hue has reconciled them all.  
No difference now  
Of High and Low,  
Of Youth and Age:  
For each Griefs Livery wears, and each is Sorrows Page.  
The Dyer now his Pains may spare,  
New Colours to invent to please the longing Eye.  
The Fashion-monger needs not care,  
Nor study now Variety.  
Our mighty Loss doth all Disputes decide,  
And silence all the strifes of Vanity and Pride.  
So, when Night throws her Mantle on the Sphere,  
No more the Rival Birds their beauteous Plumes do vie;  
No more the painted Flowers contest Priority:  
But all of one grave Colour are,  
And all unanimously wear  
The Sable Livery.   

XIII.  
Nor do our Churches less their Loss proclaim;  
To whom it doth too plain appear,  
By the Abatement of Devotions Flame,  
That Mary is not there.  
As if, when She to Heaven did go,  
She, like th' Ascending Seer,  
Along with her  
The Flames had carried too.  
Sparkling in Her at once were seen  
The Fervors of a Saint, and Glories of a Queen.  
Nor can Religion less resent her Death,  
Than once it did the fall of Great Elizabeth.   

XIV.  
It was Her fullgrown Piety,  
To which we must impute her early Destiny.  
We fond thought Her in Her Prime,  
And that mistaking Fate approached too soon:  
But Heaven, that counts by Virtues, not by Time,  
Found it was Night when we scarce thought it Noon.  
With Heaven 'twas Autumn when we thought it Spring;  
What reason then such Husbandry to blame,  
If, when the Field was white, Fate thrust the Sickle in,  
And as a Shock in season to her Grave she came.  
Nor is it strange heavens Calendar and ours,  
So much should differ in compute of Time:  
For so, when here proud Summer vaunts her Flowers,  
We know 'tis hoary Winter in the southern Clime.  
So on some Mountains may be seen,  
(Travellers know)  
Corn yet uneared and green,  
Whilst rustling Swains are Reaping in the Vales below.  
Or, if so near a semblance may allowed be;  
View but the Orange-Tree,  
(Auspicious Name!)  
And you at once may see  
Both Flowers and full-ripe Fruits upon the same.   

XV.  
Well might we think such Rarities as She;  
heavens Darlings too, as well as ours to be.  
And that She hence was snatched away,  
Not only to increase  
The number of the Blessed, but their Bliss;  
And gilled the everlasting Day.  
No wonder then to Heaven She was so dear,  
When Heaven not so much Heaven was, till She arrived there.  
So from Plebeian Rank, when some choice Spirit,  
By his uncommon and prodigious Merit,  
At Court is placed;  
His Worth retaliates the Courtesy,  
The Place as well as Guest is graced;  
So that it may a Problem be,  
Which is advanced and raised most, the Court or he.   

XVI.  
Nor was it by one single thrust of Fate,  
We of a Life so Great,  
So Glorious could be bereaved:  
But a Disease like wounds thick set,  
Where every Poor a Dart received.  
So some heroic General in the Field,  
Finding that all is lost,  
Resolved to sell it dear, disdains his Life to yield,  
But to a whole surrounding Host.  
Such Exit was becoming Majesty;  
And all bestuck with Wounds is Cesar- like to die.   

XVII.  
Unhappy we! By whom a present Good  
Is neither prized, nor understood.  
Who heavens choice Blessings only know  
By the long Train of Ills which from their Absence flow.  
And, by a late Experience, to our Cost,  
Begin to rate the Jewel when 'tis lost.  
Nor can the loud Disasters of one Age  
Enough our Loss declare:  
But, as th' Effects of Comets flaming Rage  
Extend to many a year:  
So to the unborn Race it will more plain appear.  
And late Posterity will tell,  
How Albion in Mary fell,  
And tossed in Woes, She sunk at last in deep Despair.   

XVIII.  
But hold! methinks I hear  
Britain's good Genius whispering in her Ear,  
" Despair not; for the mighty Nassau still is there.  
" He still thy Throne doth fill;  
" And, though his Consort's dead, to Thee is wedded still.  
" He disappears indeed for Sorrow now.  
" But shortly, that Helives, his Foes shall know.  
" His Grief shall but his Courage whet,  
" And raise it higher yet;  
" Till slaughtered Legions of his Enemies,  
" To Celebrate the Obsequies  
" Of his Deceased Queen, shall fall a Sacrifice.   

XIX.  
Go on, great Monarch, then; and let France feel,  
A warlike Prince can mourn in Steel.  
Or that, since Red the Soldiers Mourning is,  
He never Mourns amiss,  
Who doth his Grief assuage  
By turning it to Rage,  
And stains the Conquered Fields with Blood.  
The Man of Strength thus made his Passion understood,  
When grieved his Wife to lose,  
To wreak himself upon his Foes,  
And of their heaped Skulls to build a Sconce;  
He slew a Thousand Philistines at once.    


Her Epitaph.  
REader, who Passing by, dost find  
The Glorious Mary here Enshrined;  
Thou mayst, with Boldness, now Declare,  
That She is Dust, as Others are:  
But say no more of Her thou must,  
Who nothing Common had, but Dust.   

Latinè.  
INclyta Marmoreo, Te praetereunte, Viator,  
Dum jacet hic Tumulo strata Maria suo:  
Jam licitè confer Aliis Mortalibus Illam  
Possis, & audacter dicere, Pulvis erat.  
Dic igitur. Verùm nil amplius addere fas est:  
Nam Commune Aliis nil, nisi Pulvis, erat.   
FINIS.