Piae juventuti Sacrum, An elegy on The Death of the most virtuous and hopeful young Gentleman GEORGE PITT Esq:  Sen: Herc: Fur: Act: 3. 
Prima quae vitam dedit hora, carpsit.  
Even that first hour wherein man lives,  
Takes one hour from the life it gives.  
Printed in the year 1658.   

To THE MOST virtuous AND THEREFORE MOST DESERVEDLY HONOURED LADY, Mris ALICE PITT, With all due Service and Devotion is humbly Dedicated the following Elegy: At the Funerals of her only, and worthily Beloved son Mr G. P.  
MADAM,  
SInce You can be so Charitably kind,  
To let us share the Blessings of your Mind;  
Since of the Comforts of your womb, your Son,  
You could allow me part; and still had done,  
Had not our wretched lives cursed Mistresses  
His progress feared, envied our happiness.  
It seems But just, I should be sharer to,  
As of your joys before, so sorrows now.  
Not then to joy with you, it had but been  
My Misery; 'twere, not to grieve, my sin.  
That was my privilege, This my duty is;  
That Gratitude Commands, Religion this.  
Nor dare I mourn by halves, The whole man he,  
Must wear no particoloured livery:  
Such as indeed the joy-dissembling heir  
Too oft at's fathers funeral seems to wear;  
when turn him inside out, you'll easily find  
Much differing colours in his cloak and Mind.  
My sorrow's die'd in grain I only have  
Just so much life as keeps me from the grave.  
Your Bounty clothes the outward man in black,  
His Death would not allow my soul to lack  
Her Mourning-suit; who in respect to you  
Has clad her Maid all in close mourning too  
Your goodness calls on one; and here you see,  
My bold grief multiplies that one to three.  
Upon the weak staff of a splitted Quill,  
My cripple Muse comes halting up the Hill;  
And humbly at your feet does prostrate fall,  
The devoutest mourner at this funeral.  
Your sorrows raised her from that Bed of ease,  
Where she so long had hugged her own disease;  
And had expired long siuce, a prey to death,  
But that your sighs brought a supply of breath  
Hearing your groans, she started up, and see  
No Sun appear, she straight cries out-'Tis he!  
And with a trembling eye, roving about,  
At length she spies that mournful harrow out.  
Seeing this 
* The two tops are the Church and your house.  two-toped Hill (for now there's odds  
Betwixt your house, and that which once was God's:  
Though these made one, till some more wise than we  
Durst preach it schism to live in unity.)  
Seeing these tops two blackest clouds o'ershade  
(God's frown the one, your sadnesle tother made:)  
She calls it her Parnassus, and does run  
In haste, to take leave of her setting sun.  
The Deity inspired her was your Son,  
Whose virtues made your tears her Helicon.  
But may this fountain soon run dry! that stream  
No more occasioned on so sad a theme!  
O rather may my muse's last breath be  
Exhaled in this unwelcome elegy!  
O may she rather spend her rustic rhythm  
Upon the reigning vices of the time;  
And with her betters only reap these gains,  
An happy Curse of Silence for her pains!  
Had she not in this sin which she has done,  
Served the sad mother more than happy son;  
She had not in so deep a note sat down,  
And groaned: But up to heaven had flown  
In lofty numbers; such as might become  
The Sainted offspring of your happy womb.  
I cannot blame your love, which did contrive  
So many ways to keep this flower alive:  
Though in a lovely garden here he grew,  
Made for such flowers alone as he and you:  
Though you did well those lawful hopes to nourish,  
To see him in this garden thrive and flourish:  
Though such endeavours with Religion stand,  
Yet did your prayers still contradict your hand:  
You wished him blessed, your own experience shows  
That no man's so before to heaven he goes.  
I know you grudge him not his early rest,  
Nor think his blessing less, 'cause so soon blessed.  
Who soonest goes this journey, runs his race  
With as much ease as speed, and takes his place  
Highest in heaven; we who stay here behind,  
Laden with sins and sorrows, we shall find  
The entrance much more hard, and there must be  
Content to sit lower by much than he.  
This is your Blessing, that for seau'nteen years  
You have possessed what now you lose with tears.  
That heaven entrusted you with that rich prize,  
In love of which itself did sympathize  
With you and us: That you have been so long  
His Nurse, till he can speak the angel's tongue.  
And bears his part in that sweet choir, that siug  
Loud hallelujahs to their God and King.  
May that bright Glory, which now crowns the Son,  
Attend the Mother when her race is run!  
There may you meet where endless comforts may,  
And shall make't an eternal Holiday.  
Till when my altered calendar shall b●●  
Two letters for this day in every year.  
A black one for your loss, an other Red  
To signify the happy day he sped  
In heaven; May all the virtuous family  
Still live so innocent, so happy die!  
May heavens' warm rays revive your joys and keep  
Your Hopes awake, until your Bodies sleep  
In peaceful Graves, and all your souls do fly  
In triumph up to Immortality!   

ON The Early, but happy death, of the very hopeful young Gentleman, my once most dear, and Honoured friend, GEORGE PITT Esq: Dying of an haereditary Consumption at 17 years of age.  
THus flitting are our best of joys, and this  
The misery attends too early bliss;  
To have a friend which I must lose! O bless  
Me (Heavens) with no such fading happiness!  
Whilst here I breath, O let me rather be  
As free from friends, as Immortality!  
So shall no dying joy to me bequeathe  
A living sorrow by its hasty Death.  
" Sorrow hath to the height itself improved,  
" When we have lost what we can say we loved.  
What shall I call my Passion then, who have  
buried more than one Heaven in his Grave?  
I loved and lost, to tell you what, and when,  
Were but to love and lose him o'er again.  
Great Griefs are dumb, in these sad lines I show,  
What 'tis my grief would say were it not so.  
What others might call words, here are but weak  
Expressions, only signs that I would speak.  
Could I speak out, my lines should have no end,  
My grief bee'ng more than words can comprehend.  
And yet no wonder, if each sigh, each tear,  
Falling upon his dust new-moulded were,  
And unto us articulate now seem,  
Rebounding from so Elegant a theme.  
As Memnon's statue without soul or sense,  
When warmed and moved by th' powerful Influence  
Of Heaven above, did seem in gratitude  
To bless the power whence 'twas with life endued:  
So may his shining soul, which now is gone  
Triumphant far above the Stars and Sun,  
Dart down a Courteous and enlivening ray,  
To actuate our souls, as those our clay;  
And make us such in●eed as he should have  
All speaking monuments about his grave.  
Till then, like one whose losses strike him dumb,  
With this sad Paper on my breast I come,  
And mourn before thy hearse, such grief's expressed  
Best by a silent tongue, and vocal breast:  
For these sad words in these white sheets, they be  
The walking Ghosts of my dead Poëtry.  
Which haunt thy Grave, the place which does enclose  
More of my treasure then the world yet knows.  
More than I have to lose again, and more  
Then richest nature can again restore.  
More than my hopes can aim at here, or can  
Be recompensed in one that's merely man.  
A treasure can indeed no more be lost  
Then be forgot, 'tis but secured at most:  
Since 't lies so safe, what's left, I'll cast all in;  
This Mite-devotion of my widowed Pen.  
Could sighs breathed out from sorrow's clouded nest,  
(Call it thy living tomb or my dead breast)  
Prevail and blow thee back again: or tears  
shoured on thy corpse raise a new spring of years:  
Could sobs and doleful groans, sent from the heart,  
(The last sad Gasps wherein our hopes depart)  
Or be so powerful, as to mollify  
The Fates, or make thee think it sin to die.  
Thy friends, whom thy far-spreading death bereft  
Of joys, and senseless as thy body left,  
Would borrow of surviving passion,  
To antedate thy resurrection.  
Could whitest Innocence with sweetness mixed,  
Could Piety in Resolution fixed,  
Could inward Grace in outward beauty set  
As true Gold in a Gilded Cabinet  
Could sweetest Inclinations in a mind  
Not warped by favour, nor through passion blind;  
Could (what's a miracle) a pious youth  
aged in Devotion and Religion's Growth,  
Could each or all of these have set a rate  
Upon a mortal, death might venerate,  
And through religion be afraid to wear  
Those sacrilegious spoils it now does here:  
We had enjoyed him longer, and in him  
Those virtues which so beautified the gem.  
Were't thou no more (sweet soul) but as of late  
My dearest friend, I durst expostulate  
With death and sickness, and thus seem to be  
In danger of a name in Poëtry.  
Could threats or flatteries, force or woo the Grave,  
Only to take what aged nature gave:  
Could dire anathemas belched out with noise  
(The loudest thunder of a Poët's voice)  
Fright death, and excommunicate disease  
I'm sure thou hadst not been so soon at ease:  
I know not which had given more cause t' have grieved  
That now thou dieest, or then so many lived.  
Were virtue but a name in thee, no doubt  
Our words might swell so big as speak it out:  
Or were our sorrow passion, Reason might  
Enter the lists and hope to win the fight:  
But 'tis above this strain we mourn, not one  
forced Sigh we have, strained tear, or modish groan.  
Such as the zealous Hypocrite puts on  
When he should mourn for's lost Religion.  
No mourners of the post, whose Grief's a trade,  
Who armed with Iron words, so come t' invade  
Death with their Execrations, murder fate  
With Curses as profane, as then too late.  
Our sorrow's Christian, and our verses be  
Our due Devotion, no starched elegy.  
True, he whose drier soul would boast a power  
Beyond what's mortal, and forbear to shower  
Down pensive tears upon thy ashes, must  
Crumbling to ashes too, mix with thy dust:  
None can but grieve for thy Mortality  
Except a soul that's much more dead than thee.  
And yet he only mourns aright, that shows  
A soul as innocent as virtuous:  
As thine, whose actions write instead of grief  
An harmless Comment on thy spotless life.  
A life so good, so chaste, it seemed to give  
Us a short taste of that which angels live:  
And what's most true in all Goods here we meet,  
This was its Commendation, Short and sweet.  
The fairest morning of a man, the dawn  
Of an eternal day; On's clay was drawn  
The loveliest picture of a lovely'r soul,  
On this the Divine Image almost whole.  
Man in his stature, in's form more than man,  
In purest Innocence a Christian.  
His nature soft, his body such as stole  
From heaven a lodging for so sweet a soul.  
Nature (as in the Ermine) fairly drew  
His duties' emblem in his spotless hue.  
Who so observed that rarest caution which  
Appeared, when e'er he was to pass the ditch  
Wherein too many welter and lie drowned,  
Choosing the softest not the firmest ground.  
Would almost say more than in compliment  
Nature, not virtue made him Innocent.  
To see so young a soul stand all alone  
I'th' world, as virtue twixt two vices, one;  
Assaulted now by one, then by another,  
And neither lere to one, nor cringe to tother,  
Made me first see the business he had  
For heaven gave him no leisure to be bad,  
Whose race with so great haste to heaven was run  
'Twas almost finished ere we saw't begun.  
O pious soul! who know'st no parallel,  
To die so young when yet thou livedst so well!  
To see so choice a gem lie all alone  
Amidst a crowd, and yet caught up by none  
Must speak a virtue more than natural  
Which struck that secret reverence into all.  
To see so fair a flower oft beset  
With weeds and thistles, and to flourish yet  
Retain its Beauty and its scent, and be  
Even guarded by 't's malignant enemy,  
Argues a vigour more than Earth can give,  
And more than aught but Heaven Could receive.  
Those pretty tempting bats which lie and hem  
Youth in, and prey on those would feast on them,  
Could in his more resolved countenance move  
A smile at most, and of disdain, not love.  
Those thundering Oaths, the highest emblossed Pride  
Of brave discourse, which the swollen Deicide  
Enam'lling all his talk with that rude grace  
In a Bravado spits in heavens' pure face.  
Spread such an horror o'er his soul, as't seemed  
The tenderest part of what was thus blasphemed,  
So constant at's Devotion, as though  
His soul did nothing but his Heaven know.  
How easily went that soul to God, each day  
Which made it thus its task to learn that way!  
For him to go to Heaven, 'twas no more  
But trace the foot steps he had made before:  
Knowing that he must run, that wins the goal,  
It was his care thus oft to breathe his soul.  
What e'er might bring to heaven, to him 'twas all  
Becomes so perfectly habitual  
It was as hard for him to do amiss  
As 'twas for others to obtain their bliss.  
Where others with amazement gaze and spy  
A Phancy'd lustre which puts out the eye,  
He saw, and seeing loathed, and loathing shunned;  
Did not his reason; with his sense confound.  
His words were such, as only his could be  
Sweet perfumes breathed from that rich Spicery  
Which did embalm his soul whilst here it lay  
buried within its Sepulchre of clay.  
He lived, as if his errand hither were  
To beg of each a passion, each a prayer.  
So heavenly were his soul's sweet motions all  
To rest below had been unnatural.  
So doth that noblest element of fire  
Fight with its fuel and to heaven aspire,  
And when that's vanquished, and it upwards gone,  
Lives the more pure though after seen by none.  
His business here below was not to wast.  
A life, or stay till some few minutes passed;  
All that he came to do was this, nowhere  
He had to leave's mortality but here.  
His blessed soul came hither but to show  
That all that go to heaven must this way go:  
Had it been possible a soul should bound  
So high without a fall upon the Ground,  
Could man enjoy eternal life, and not  
First die, than had he never been forgot:  
Heaven would have prized such jewels much more high,  
Then to expose them to each vulgar eye.  
But since the purest diamond, ere it stand  
The pride and Glory of a Noble hand  
Must first endure the file, and not think much  
T' abide the Lapidarie's ruder touch.  
Even so his richer soul now safely set  
In God's more wide and Glorious Cabinet,  
(enamel rich as those bright orbs e'er wore.)  
Was here placed to be Cut and polished ore.  
Such was his entertainment here, that day  
Which first gave life, first took his health away.  
Born but to practise his mortality,  
Only to learn how to be sick and die.  
Nature grew jealous at his birth, she saw  
A face so sweet, so brave a soul, in awe  
Of her own work she stood, and lest it should  
Grow more than man, and deify her mould,  
She sent him not abroad, but as we do  
Our prisoners; with his churlish keeper too.  
His guard's a sad disease, which does essay  
To stifle's soul in his infected clay.  
And when she would have walked abroad, to view  
What Nature made of old, or Art anew,  
Clapped bolts and shackles on each faculty,  
And made her life a death, who could not die.  
Till leaning too too heavy on the wall,  
It had so weakened, caused at length its fall:  
And now the joyful soul escaped is  
Into a fair eternity of bliss.  
O Happy soul, in this thy misery!  
For having tried so long what 'tis to die,  
Thou quickly didst thy work, without all pain,  
And go'st to rest eternally again.  
Whilst others drop or stumble in, heavens' gave  
Him leave to walk softly into this grave.  
Such flowers are not cut down, but drawn up hence  
By their bright Sire's attractive influence.  
No sudden raging Fever parched his clay,  
And in an instant scorched his life away:  
But, as wax in the sunshine, when't has felt  
That warmth, does rather sweetly yield then melt.  
And seems to smile upon its kinder fates,  
And to embrace the wounding rays, dilates  
And kindly spreads its self, and woos its death  
Longing its last embraces to bequeathe:  
So did his melting body yielding lie  
Smiling upon the Courteous Cruelty  
Of such a kind disease, which in each limb  
Did seem to wast it self much more than him.  
Who saw him breathe his last would conclude thence,  
He whispered Death in's ear to fetch him hence.  
They seemed to strive which should yield first of these,  
His feeble body or his weak disease,  
He did espouse his sickness, was in love  
With that which first could seat his soul above.  
Angry with his physicians, who did try  
To kill the Death brought Immortality.  
His sickness to his body was born twin,  
As every soul since Adam to its sin.  
Such entire friends that both must be or neither  
Since both were borne, both live, both die together.  
But why miscall weed sickness or disease,  
Which is his Conduct to eternal ease?  
Which heaven sent hither with him, lest when hurled  
Now here, now there in a tumultuous world,  
He might forget where 'twas his business lay,  
This softly pulls, and tells him that's the way.  
If ere it pinched so hard, as fetched a groan,  
It quickly sends a slumber to atone.  
The breach of friendship, as an early taste  
Or soft praeludium to eternal rest.  
So like the sisters were in him, his breath,  
Did only tell us which was sleep, which death,  
His last successive breathings did increase  
In such proportioned measures, that to cease  
Did seem Impossible, what e'er may be  
The adverse dictates of Philosophy.  
His breathings passed in such proportion  
As each respected that eternal one.  
When by his long disease his patient breast  
Did seem to be more than was fit oppressed,  
And made us sometimes over apt to say  
His spirit was as heavy as his clay,  
We sinned against his piety which thus  
sequestered from's malignant dust and us  
That purest soul, which up to heaven was gone  
In holy raptures of Devotion:  
When e'er we judged him to be sad or dull  
'Twas absence but no heaviness of soul.  
He was a study'ng whilst he here did stay  
Only to make choice of a dying Day.  
And 'twas no wonder, he dispatched so soon,  
Who goes with th' Sun, shall come to heaven at noon.  
'Twas not too soon to go when God did call,  
His fruit was ripe before his flower did fall.  
angel's could not too soon their Hooks here bring,  
'Tis ever Harvest, where there's such a Spring.  
He saw but little, disliked more: the world  
unsettled, always round about him hurled;  
To fix there, were not to stand still but reel;  
Who would live to be broke on such a wheel?  
Yet did he try town, Country, and did see  
Some relics of an University:  
But nought could force his stay: much more he might  
Have seen, but strove to be at home ere night:  
And now no wonder if such flowers do fade  
Set in so lean a soil, so cold a shade  
As is the barren world that's here below:  
No such fair flowers on such foul dunghills grow.  
Just blown he was when heavens' all-searching eye  
In love with's beauty and his fragrancy,  
Straight plucks him up, and gives him this new name,  
A Saint inth bosom of blessed Abraham.  
This is his name, And now whom I before  
Did love and honour, I must learn t' adore.  
He now has haply changed his mortal state,  
And 'twas his emulation, not his Fate:  
That Death so early called a soul so chaste,  
Argues his timely ripeness, not its haste.  
It was my happiness when I could call  
Him friend, not startled at a funeral.  
But since 'tis more his bliss thus to acquaint  
Himself with Angels, canonised a Saint  
By Death's own hand, I must aesteeme it more  
To be his votary now, than friend before  
He was not borne for us, alas we must  
Not think such jewels fitted for our trust  
His goodness was our loss, heaven often spares  
less blessings for a greater term of years:  
We measure Good lives not by years but hours,  
'Tis much that we can say, he once was ours:  
That we once saw him is enough to boast:  
And 'tis the noblest brag to say we've lost,  
And yet we have not lost our Saint, unless  
In an eternity of happiness.  
We well may lose ourselves in thinking how  
Heaven is so mindful of poor things below,  
As lend us so long his sweet presence, when  
itself thus picks him out from other men.  
So when the Glorious eye of heaven doth go  
To view the wonders which we call below  
We use to say he sets and falls, when there  
He's no less high or bright than he was here:  
His course is one, and Constant, though we call  
What our own natural darkness is, his fall  
he's not of life, but we of him bereft,  
The sorrows we have found, those he has left  
Going to't all the morning, now at Even  
We see him step over the Grave to Heaven.  
All joy to thee in heaven (Blessed soul!) whilst we  
Here weep and groan and pray to rest with thee.  
'tis not thy fate that we thy friends bemoan,  
'tis not thy death, not thy loss but our own.  
We ne'er shall find our joys again till we  
Can die and lose our griefs in heaven with thee.  
But we disturb thy sacred dust, now close  
Wrapped up securely in a sweet repose.  
We not so prize thy soul, as hope to buy  
It back by th' cheap expenses of an eye.  
Why shouldst thou now from all thy joys descend,  
Unblesse thyself, so to reblesse thy friend?  
When we'd enjoy thee next, 'twill be a light  
Task for thy sake to bid the world Good-night,  
We easily shall pass through the Grave and death  
To come to thee, we'll run quite out of breath.  
Such pious journeys still successful be,  
He's sure to go to heaven that comes to thee.  Mors iter ad vitam.  

An EPITAPH on the same.  
Ask you, what's by this Marble meant?  
Thus said the soul, which this way went.  
Friend, I am gone,  
There nothing lies but dust and stone:  
Wouldst thou be here?  
Step in and leave thy body there.  
Why at the door  
Dost stand and talk? I'm far before  
Wouldst be where I  
Now happy rest? Dispatch and die  
So shalt thou be  
that in thy self, thou seek'st in me.  
Strike through this stone, make haste to taste & know,  
What I enjoy, but cannot tell thee now.   

Another.  
KNock not, but enter; why dost fear?  
His ashes sleep, his soul's not here.  
What here thou seeest, this breathless dust  
Lived seau'nteen years, chaste, Good, and Iust.  
When here it could no better be,  
'T went home ro immortality.  
This Grave, which by its death became  
The sole survivor of the 
* PITT. He being the last heir male of the family.  name,  
Was left its Heir, till that day when  
These ashes shall revive again;  
And up to those blessed mansions sore,  
Wither the soul went long before.  
FINIS.