AN ELEGY On the Death of the Reverend and Pious Mr. Thomas Wadsworth, Sometime Preacher of the Gospel in Newington-Butts, and late of London, who departed this Life the 29th of October, 1676.  

READER, prepare thine eye, for here's a sight  
Can nothing less than floods of Tears invite;  
Deep Waters come the stillest; and the grief  
That's greatest, court the Eyes to give relief.  
Come here you Stoics, let your Marble-eyes  
Swell big with grief, and pay their due excise:  
For here's a Theme would make him shed good store  
Of Tears, that never knew to weep before.  
The Reverend Wadsworth lately dead! What Eye  
But mourns the loss of so much Piety!  
A loss indeed which ought for to produce,  
A general grief in Men of any use;  
And such a loss, for which who will not spend  
A Tear, 's not Learning, nor Religion's Friend.  
Come all his Reverend Brethren, mourn and weep,  
Your Brother Wadsworth now is fallen asleep. 
His serious Exhortation to a holy Life, Written not long after his entrance on the ministry.   
And you his serious Hearers, now lament,  
That Preachers Death, whose life for you was spent.  
Esteem it as a privilege you have,  
T' attend his precious Dust unto the Grave!  
Then study well (let that be all your strife)  
His Exhortation to a holy Life.  
Grief must Command your silence; but impart  
In silent Tears, the Language of your Heart:  
By many Storms and Tempests now at last.  
Our Wadsworth on a blessed shore is cast. 
* His Book Entitled, the Immortality of the Soul.  He's blest indeed unto Eternity,  
That preached and lived souls Immortality.  
And having reached that Harbour of delight,  
It argues that he steered his course aright:  
Now no afflicting pains can him come near,  
Nor needs he 
* Of which he had sore Fits.  Stone or Colic for to fear;  
His heavenly Father who knows times best,  
Called up his Soul on his own 
* He died on the Lord's day.  Day of rest.  
Lament, O Dead-mans-Place, thy wretched case!  
Thy Candlesticks removed out of its place:  
Heaven has thought fit to give him a remove:  
Thy shining light's a fixed Star above.  
Thus ere we dry our big-swelled Eyes for One,  
Tidings surprises that another's gone:  
So Reverend Wells, and Pledger's snatched away;  
They followed Janeway, and venning's day:  

Carmichel succeeds them, but not long  
Ere that blessed Soul was called up among  
The unclothed Saints to sing the heavenly Song.   
And though he had an Elegy, I'll say,  
He was a light that burned in his Day.  
Methinks I hear them all o'erjoyed to see,  
Dear Wadsworth added to their Company:  
Their company is sweet, Heaven thinks it best  
To call such Saints to everlasting rest.  
And you Stargazing Tribe, should you be blest  
To find a Star that's brighter than the rest,  
'Tis pious Wadsworth's Soul, for all conclude,  
He is a Star of the first Magnitude.    

EPITAPH.  

REader, stand off, and thy due distance keep,  
For in this bed a Friend of Christ doth sleep!  
His body here's interred, being Dead;  
But his blessed Soul to Abraham's bosom 's fled!  
Heaven hath the Jewel, Earth doth keep in trust  
For a short time the Reverend Wadsworth's Dust,  
Until the Resurrection of the Just.   Secula vix referent quem tulit una dies.  

London, Printed for Dorman Newman at the King's Arms in the Poultry, MDCLXXVI.