AN ELEGY UPON The Death of Mrs. A. BEHN; The Incomparable ASTREA.  By a Young Lady of Quality. 

I.  
SUmmon the Earth, (the Fair Astrea's gone)  
And let through every Angle fly,  
Till it has filled the mighty Round,  
And thence arise to the expanded Sky,  
In Murmurs for the misery done,  
To see if Heaven, Heaven will our Grief supply,  
With Tears enough to mourn her Destiny.  
Assemble all the Crowds below,  
You that Obedience to the Muses owe,  
And teach the Sighing Maids to mourn,  
With unbound Hair, and flowing Tears,  
In Strains as moving as her Numbers were,  
The mighty Desolation, mighty Woe.  
Teach them in Charming Accents, such as once  
She did the listening Crowds inform,  
When high as Heaven her Praise was born,  
And taught the Angels to rejoice,  
In sweeter, truer Numbers than before,  
In all their bright Seraphic Store,  
Had ever tuned their Heavenly Voice:  
And thus prepared, let them the Loss deplore,  
The charming wise Astrea is no more.   

II.  
What have we done? What have our Crimes deserved?  
Why this injurious Rape?  
The World is Widowed now,  
And Desolation every where  
With dismal Groans invades the Air;  
My sullen Muse, that ne'er before  
The sacred Title wore,  
Untaught, unpractised, has preferred  
(For none from Mourning can escape)  
In uneven Strains, and much below  
All but my Grief,  
To tell the World their Universal Woe,  
Which ne'er can hope Relief:  
'Tis an implacable Decree,  
That Languishments, Diseases, Death,  
Must attend all that live on Earth.  
Cannot those Hours we here possess,  
From Fate, and those attendant Ills, be free,  
That ravish hence our Happiness,  
But in Diseases, Murmurs, Strife,  
Made pass away our hasty Life?  
When if it uncontrolled did bloom,  
Exempt from Anguishes or Fears,  
Who then would offer up their Tears,  
To see their beckoning Fate were come,  
After a Life supinely run?  
But now in Pain that lingering Span must waste,  
Which Sighing terminates in Death at last,  
And kills with us the sense of Dangers past.   

III.  
Can no distinction here be owned?  
Must Death for ever stand thus armed,  
To snatch a Soul Divinely formed?  
Must that then Triumph over all?  
Give all below a Fatal Wound,  
Then urge it is but Natural?  
Ah! how inglorious is our Fate,  
How rigid, and how desperate?  
We're flattered with the pleasing Tale;  
In us the form of Gods are seen;  
Fond Ignorance▪ for they are all Divine,  
Exempt from all we fear:  
Nor can their Being's ever fail,  
As those that wander here.  
Hence then, thou false received Belief, begun,  
And let us see, we're like ourselves alone.   

IV.  
Who now, of all the inspired Race,  
Shall take Orinda's Place?  
Or who the Hero's Fame shall raise?  
Who now shall fill the Vacant Throne?  
The bright Astrea's gone,   

V.  
And with her all that heavenly Wit,  
And Charming Wonders of her Face,  
On which with more we gazed,  
And claimed a Title to our Praise.  
The Graces too have made their flight,  
All to inglorious Fate submit;  
To Fate, which draws us to that nearer sight  
Of Death, and everlasting Night,  
Where Silence her chief Empire sways,  
And hurls a gloomy Shade around  
The hollow unexhausted Ground,  
Which all Return denies:  
For when the sickening Soul decays,  
Languishes, sighs, and dies,  
She bids an everlasting long Adieu  
To all the World, and all she valued too.   

VI  
Let all our Hope's despair and die,  
Our Sex for ever shall neglected lie;  
Aspiring Man has now regained the Sway,  
To them we've lost the Dismal Day:  
Astrea an equal Balance held,  
(Tho' she deserved it all;)  
But now the rich Inheritance must fall;  
To them with Grief we yield  
The Glorious envied Field.  
Of her own Sex, not one is found  
Who dares her Laurel wear,  
Withheld by Impotence or Fear;  
With her it withers on the Ground,  
Untouched, and cold as she,  
And Reverenced to that degree,  
That none will dare to save  
The Sacred Relic from the Grave;  
Entombed with her, and never to return,  
Fills up the narrow Urn,  
Which more Presumption, or more Courage has than we.   

VII.  
In Love she had the softest sense;  
And had her Virtue been as great,  
In Heaven she'd filled the foremost Seat.  
This failure, or she had Immortal been,  
And free as Angels are from Sin;  
'Twas pity that she practised what she taught;  
Her Muse was of the bolder Sex;  
Such Mysteries of Love she did dispense,  
Such moving natural Eloquence,  
As made her too much Wit her fault.  
Her ever-loyal Muse took no pretext,  
To discommend what once it praised;  
And what has most her Glory raised,  
Her Royal Master she has followed home,  
Nor would endure the World when he had lost his Throne.   

VIII.  
Hail! the Elysian Shades, and bright Orinda, hail!  
They now much happier are than we;  
Their Triumphs are but now begun;  
What we have lost, the Shades have won:  
Her Presence makes their Harmony,  
For ever we must disagree.  
See then, and do not fail,  
To entertain the welcome Guest,  
And sing her Praise above the rest,  
For she deserves the Triumph best.  
Meet her, ye Amorous Lovers, and Adore  
Her Shade, before  
The Nymphs for whom you Fetters wore.  
Her Care was most for you,  
For still she gave to Sacred Love its due,  
Revealed more Mysteries than Ovid knew:  
Join all the Glorious Shades, and sing Astrea's Praise,  
Whilst her unhappy Monument we raise.   
FINIS.   

Apr. 22. 1689.  
This may be Printed.  
ROB. MIDGLEY.   

London, Printed by E. I. 1689.