AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT Honourable SPENCER, EARL OF NORTHAMPTON, WHO DIED A CONQUEROR At the Battle of Hopton-heath.  

BAck, back ye too officious Tears, our Grief  
Moves in a Sphere too high to find relief  
From your moist Tribute: go, and help to mourn  
At some dry Nurses Grave, or thirsty Urn  
Of a Court Parasite, who there did lie,  
While others fought, to beg their dignity;  
Or if you like not these, your aid afford  
At the scorned Fall of some great Edge-hill Lord,  
Who mounted on that Terrace viewed the Field  
With such delight as Gardens use to yield  
Set with Brigads of Bones, or else French Box  
Cut into Knots, for whose Familiar Pox  
His living Carcase had for long time been  
Steeped in Populion and Gum Seraphine,  
That'mongst the Surgeons a dispute might be  
Whether his Morbus were embalmed or he.  
Bedew what hearse ye please, here is no room  
For such light mourners at this Solemn Tomb▪  
But (ah) where is't? Northampton must not have  
(Such is their inhumanity) a Grave;  
To him who in his death deserved Heaven,  
Five foot of Common earth would not be given.  
Foolish and Cruel! in denying one  
The have bestowed on him a Million,  
Each noble English breast is now become  
Recorder of his virtues, and his Tomb,  
Who shall his name in lasting letters keep  
When short lived Marble shall be laid to sleep,  
When Brook, and Gell, and Pym, & Strode & Grace,  
(That poor one-syllabled race) shall melt away  
And dwindle into nothing, He shall fill  
Times Brazen Leaves, that who come after will  
Forbear great Acts, for fear there should not be  
For them and him too, room in history.  
But on ye Gallant spirits of the Age  
he'll be content to crowd into a page  
Rather than have his sacred Master's cause,  
For which he died, Religion and the Laws  
To bleed, for as his life was old and plain,  
So in his death he did affect no Train  
Or idle Pomp, like Kings who when they die  
Oft send a plague out to press Company  
Of followers to wait on them, that so  
They may in state salute the Shades below.  
He did desire (so free was he from pride)  
But two or three t'attend his naked side  
Unto his bliss; store of his friends, 'tis true,  
Did strongly Court him for the journey too,  
Witness the blood they lost that fatal day,  
Witness the noble wounds they bore away.  
But all their large endeavours could not move,  
His Lordship did the better Courtier prove:  
To leave the King's Troops full, to him was more,  
Then to see old Charon tug at's Ebon Oar  
By the weight of his retinue—  
He fell indeed (so nobly did he close  
His life,) he fell with multitudes of Foes.  
So in fair Beaumond▪ I have seen an Oak  
When mercenary hands by many a stroke  
Have made him nod, all tottering as he stood,  
Threaten a ruin to the underwood.  
But (alas) the Rabble that he slew that day  
Was neither for his company nor way.  
For as they met on bloody Hopton-plaine  
They parted there too, ne'er to meet again:  
While his blessed Soul did up to Heaven fly  
To wear an Anadem for his Loyalty,  
And his most rightly ordered valour, they  
Hunted quite counter down the other way,  
Cursing that Ordinance made them Rebel,  
And sent them to the Lower House of Hell,  
Where that dark Close Committee shall not need  
To make a post-nate Law for their black deed.  
It is confessed he might have been alive,  
But that he scorned breath as a Donative,  
And that from them; he blushed to have it said  
They gave him life, who their own had forfeited.  
Heroic Soul! how easy were't for me,  
To make whole Nature weep an Elegy!  
I cannot view a shower, nor yet stood still,  
To see a Spring come trickling from a Hill  
To court a sportive Mead, but I could call  
Them Heaven & Earth's tears at thy Funeral,  
Night wears a sable Mantle, and for you  
The Morn and Evening drop their pearly dew,  
Autumn for grief tears off his tawny Locks,  
The Trees weep Gums, their amber-Grease the Rocks.  
Lightning as Tapers at thy hearse I place,  
And Thunder style but sorrows deeper Base;  
When I the glances of fallen stars espy,  
I fancy tears sent from Astraeas' eye  
To mourn thy loss: this I could do, but fear  
Apollo then would pluck me by the ear,  
And call me fool, tell me such wanton dresses  
Would better fit the curled and amorous Tresses  
Of silken Squires, who safe in a warm Town  
Do choose to die upon ignoble Down  
Summoned by surfeits, rather than to feel  
The shock of Mars locked up in manly steel,  
Who lie at home (like to a boaking Toad)  
To blast their Acts who are employed abroad,  
And (like blind veins through which the waters fall)  
Make the pure springs taste of their mineral,  
Who scarcely can their burial day out live,  
And have no worth but what their Heralds give.  
I could be angry now, but that I see  
With what a gentle scorn he laughs at me  
And my distempered zeal; pardon blest soul,  
I cannot my unruly grief control,  
Nor think with patience how each family  
Almost, but thine, parts stakes with Loyalty  
And Treason, so abetting on both hands,  
If God or the Devil can do't, to save their lands.  
Thou sett'st but all thou hadst, thy estate, thy life,  
Thy goodly offspring, thy heroic Wife,  
That virtuous Lady, who like Niobe  
Would mourn into a statue, but that she  
Beholds thy picture in her noble Son,  
Who after thee, being dead, made haste to run,  
But that Bellona in love with him assayed  
To wound his foot, and so his journey stayed.  
Greatest of Gamesters, why wouldst thou hazard so?  
What all thy jewels at one desperate throw?  
Who shall forbid my vexed Muse to call  
Northampton now the Loyal Prodigal,  
Who ventured his whole Stock? would others bring  
Such aides, we quickly then should have a KING,  
And Church, & Laws restored, which now do lie  
Wounded by a many headed tyranny.  
Becalm your rugged foreheads then, o all  
Ye that lament this Lord's too hasty fall;  
For though his age be shortneed, it appears  
He as gained in fame, what he has lost in years;  
Though th'one half of his days he hath not told  
Who dies with Honour Virtue makes him Old.    
FINIS.