A POEM ON THE QUEEN.  
By T. N. Gent.  
LONDON; Printed for Richard Baldwin, near the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane. 1695.   

A POEM ON THE QUEEN.  

I.  
SAY, Happy Man, Inhabiter of Earth,  
On that Great Day MARIA had her Birth,  
Did not the Balmy Aspect of the Morn  
Portend the Budding Glory of our Realm?  
Did not her Infant Rays the World adorn,  
With Luminous Hopes of Golden Days, now past,  
Those Days that came so soon, that fled so fast?  
Those Days that Reason wishes yet unborn;  
Those Days that MARY steered the yielding Helm.  
Say, Wretched Man, (if Sighs obstruct not Words)  
Did not Her Early Virtues show,  
'Twas an Impossibility,  
So well-endowed a Soul as She,  
Should to Her Heaven flee,  
Before the World She blest  
Knew of th' inestimable Worth it was possessed?  
She was as Pure (O Heaven! and must She too  
Obey your Exhalations) like the Pearly Dew.   

II.  
She did—  
We knew in part,  
In part we knew Her Worth,  
In part the Great Creator's Art  
Saw and admired.  
But He, perhaps, (as needs he must) foresaw,  
The Idolising World would run,  
As oft they'd done before,  
Forsaking the Exhaustless Store  
Of Light, to worship his collected Rays, the Sun.  
To worship for its self the Image which his Hand did draw,  
He saw our Souls already fired,  
He saw, and mercifully stopped us there,  
(At once the Objects of his Anger and his Care)  
And using Kindness, though severe,  
Showed us the Gods had not their dwelling here.   

III.  
'Twere impious then to murmur at their Fate,  
Whom of peculiar Love the Gods translate.  
She trod no common Path to Bliss,  
Nor went a pathless way to Happiness;  
So went that Hebrew Sovereign before,  
Who mildly read the Message o'er,  
That he must live no more.  
Obeyed the Dictates of his Friend and God;  
Resigns his prosperous Sword and potent Rod;  
And carried up his Body too,  
As th' utmost Offering  
His stretched Capacity could bring  
Or willing Mind could do,  
Where only borrowing its Eyes,  
The shadow of the Promised Land surveyed,  
And in an Ecstasy of Joy he dies,  
For those blessed Realms above to be enjoyed.   

iv  
Faith was her Canaan and Mount Pisgah too,  
From whence She had the Promised Land in view;  
By which She Heaven in its Type possessed,  
Drew its Celestial Landscape in Her Breast;  
That when the dreaded Summons came,  
Filled in the Fatal Blank with MARY's Name;  
Submissively She bowed Her Head,  
And smiling heard the Language read.  
Nor stayed, but up the Sacred Hill She stepped,  
Whilst Crowds of grieving Subjects round it wept,  
(That Her immediate Bounty or Protection kept  
From an abrupter Death—)  
Now gained the Top, She viewed the Fluid Pass,  
Where the divided Streams let Israel through,  
Opposing all such Passage now,  
Unable to sustain the Ponderous 
* Her Body.  Mass,  
Tho Fairer even than themselves it was.  
Nor could the Egyptian 
† Exod. 7.1.  God of old,  
Tho the All powerful Rod he swayed,  
Whose Motions every Element obeyed,  
(
* Deut. 34.5.  As by his own Prophetic Sense we be told)  
Force his own Body through the thin Expanse of subtler Air.  
Tho by its Journey up th' Ascent,  
It looks as if he meant  
To waft it thence up on the towering Wings of Prayer.  
So did She to the Law of Nature yield;  
She knew that all things to their proper Centre went,  
She knew it must be so, and was content.  
No Struggles sought to violate  
That Law that from the first Creation took its date,  
And Salic must remain to the Conclusive Stroke of Fate.    
FINIS.