AN ALPHABET OF Elegiac Groans, UPON The truly lamented Death of that Rare Exemplar of Youthful Piety, JOHN FORTESCVE, Of the Inner-Temple, Esquire. By E. E. Chronogram. DIes MortIs CharIor est nataLe. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. London, Printed for Tho. Heath, in Russel-street near the Piazza's of Covent-Garden. 1656. AN ALPHABET OF Elegiac Groans. ELEG. I. ALas! why sigh I thus? why do mine eyes Bubble up sorrow at these obsequies? Such outward symptoms of my grief are small, My soul weeps inward at his Funeral. That Anguish lurks in secret, whose dread smart Wrought into th' Bottom, undermines the Heart. Tears then adieu: only heartblood can be Convenient drops for such an Elegy. I've lost Half of my Soul! Strange Fates that give To one thus spirit-wounded power to live! My OTHER I is dead! Can Atrop sever Two thus made one, so jointly knit together, Unless by cutting both? Oh no! his Death Hath wrestled out my Life, though not my Breath. But what, shall I confine to mine own Breast This common grief, of which the World s possessed? A springing Cedar's fallen, so fair, so tall, That all our Hearts are earthquaked at his Fall: Which was so strangely sudden, as his Rise To such Perfections was; it doth surprise Us with Amazement, that our Faces be Badged with that Mark of Grief, Stupidity. 'Twould seem to ease our sorrows, could we raise Our words so high as to complete his Praise. But this we cannot do, unless we could Form our rough Brains in so exact a mould, As that from them might flow in Teary showers So many Volumes as He lived hours. Yet this we must confess; his Parts so rife Made him far fit for his death, than life. Earth scarcely knew them; for, like Stars, they were Less in her eye, 'cause unto Heaven more near. He was God's Hidden Treasure; no Man's eye Viewed all those Riches which in's soul did lie. God now has ta'en him to his proper place; But wresting out the Gem, He th' broke the Case: Yet 'twill be made again by sacred Art The fit Enclosure of his better Part. Why then lament we at his Funeral? Ah! though he fell not, yet he seems to fall: Just like a Star that's darted through the sky, Which seems to fall, because it shuns our eye. But, that our Eyes have lost their dearest sight, May Tears convey them to the shades of Night. My soul oreflows with grief; so full's my Thought, That, like a Bubble, it is swollen to nought: I'm grown so stupid, that by silence I Can only speak so vast Calamity. ELEG. II. BE not my Lines Poetic: let them Feign, That carry sorrow not in Heart, but Brain. My waters of Affliction overflow The Banks of Helicon: I cannot show My solid grief in Verse; no Muse's wing Can bear the weight of my soul-suffering. Sad groans and sighs are here articulate; These, only these can signify such Fate: For, when the Sisters Three so throw their Darts, They fill each corner of our trembling Hearts With helpless anguish; that there be no room To hatch such words as may set forth our Doom. What then, what shall we do? Grief streitly penned Swells up the bigger: Puffed Hearts break, or vent. Shall Fates, like Cutters, which men's Fortunes drain, Thus stop our mouths, that we should not complain? Ah! though our Tongues be tied, yet shall our Eyes Drop down Expression of our Miseries. ELEG. III. COme on Eye-flouds apace: 'tis ease to weep: Those wounds need washing which are struck so deep; Lest that they putrify: men in distress Made blind with tears do see their grief the less. O doleful Tragedies, which mortals find Shut up within the closet of their mind! Where Appetite with Will is discontent, The one would not, the other must lament. So they distractions raise within our Breast, And we ourselves give to ourselves no Rest. We joy, and mourn, and mourn, and joy again, Now there is Sunshine, then Tempestuous Rain; We joy that he's in Heaven, again we mourn And wish ourselves composed in his Urn. Thus are our Thoughts revolved, as though there were No fixed Object which might stay them, here Now He is gone, who was that Rising Sun Which did attract each Exhalation Of our endeared Hearts, like Phoebe, He Seems to these eyes of Flesh eclipsed to be: 'Cause our inferior sight of Him's bereaven By interposed Earth 'twixt us and Heaven; Where now He's firmly seated, and shall be A Son of Light to all Eternity. ELEG. iv DEad! oh! and were mine Ears then made to be A Labyrinth t'enclose mine Agony; Which through their winding caverns let in pain Into my soul, ne'er to go out again? Farewell (if He be dead) farewell our joys On sordid Earth; farewell those charming toys The world affords: And it shall henceforth be Our Life to think upon Mortality. Blessed Saint that art at rest, now flown above The reach of Fate, by th'wings o' th' Heavenly Dove. Pardon, oh pardon, if our teary eyes Bemoan not thine, but our own Obsequies, Who daily die; and (which still makes us grieve) There's nothing in us, but our Deaths, doth live. Thy Death is dead, not thou: O may we then Once die like thee, that we ne'er die again. ELEG. V Emblem of Virtue, from whose Noble eye Heroic Height mixed with Humility Shone forth a peerless Paradox; whose soul Divinely big swells out of that weak scroul Which it involved: So us our griefs compel, That since thou wentest to Heaven, Earth seems our Hell; And this is our due portion: for 'tis just That we should falter with these Clogs of Dust, Until God's love, the true Prometheus' Fire, Our Earthen Hearts shall blessedly inspire, By whose ascendent virtue we may be (Like Thee) raised up to Immortality. ELEG. VI FAith is so weak it cannot see His Joys; or our perplexity: Oh! we have drunk in so much Gall, That now we have no Taste at all. Black Sorrows wrapped up in a Mist, May whiffle us now where they list, And (like Hobgoblins) they conspire To lead our thoughts into the Mire Of stupid anguish, where we find Nought else, but that lost our Mind. But ah, what Friendship is in this; That we do so deplore his bliss? O tell us not of that: our Tears Have (like their cause, his Death) no Ears. ELEG. VII. GReat in true Goodness! Rich in Mind As well's in Lands, and Birth! we find No Epithet fit to set forth The full Encomium of his worth. His Youth was Aged with Piety, Which seemed of such antiquity, That whosoever knew it, would Conceit Him in his Nonage Old. Ere He could look abroad to see The World's enticing Vanity, God fixed His Eyes on things above, Which strait way took his chiefest love: And so on Earth of Earth bereaven, He hovered 'twixt it, and Heaven. Fond Ranters shallow Gallantry He rightly judged mere slavery To Tyrant Sin. Streight-living He Enlarged his Soul to Sanctity. Each day he thought upon his last, And now at length in hast He passed Out of this World; indeed, as though He would not tell us that he'd go So quickly from us, lest our Eyes Should show His Joys our Miseries, And so disturb his pious Breast, Rejoicing at approaching Rest. He fitly went to Bed so soon, Whose very morning was High-noon. ELEG. VIII. HEre let us stay our mournful looks, and see Death's sums cast up in an Epitome: For All our Lives are lost in Him: we have (Strange Fate!) our Souls entombed in his Grave; Nay, 'tis not so, but thus: our Hearts struck dead In our (yet walking) Corpse lie Buried. ELEG. IX. Enriched with Poverty of Spirit, O-n nothing less than His own Merit H-e set his Thoughts: His Soul so bright Near viewed its own Celestial light. Fame He abhorred; whose feeble wings Often whirleth up the lightest things, R-are Virtues, as were his, do fly To lofty for the World's squint Eye. E-ach Gem of His rich Mind did even Sand up its Sparks as high as Heaven: Christ (seeing it Divinely good) U-nstrips His Soul of Flesh, and Blood: Those tiresome Rags: even so away was hurled Elia's Mantle, when he left the World. ELEG. X. KNow, know we not that Death is gain To such as lived like Him? complain We then for nought? why should our Eye Set forth so vain Hydrography, Wherein described we seem to see Whole Floods of Sorrow, though there be No reason for't? are we bedight With Black for Him, on whom The Light Of men so shines? are we Distressed; Perplexed, Unquiet at His Rest? Let's not betear our Eyes, unless it be For want o'th' sight of His Felicity. ELEG XI. LO, how our Grief rebounds, it rages worse When we endeavour to restrain its force. The Flood gates of our Eyes set , the spout Of Tears stopped in, will gush the faster out. Come; sigh necessity will have it so, Let what gave th'cause, give end unto our woe; And let's be plunged in sadness till we find That o'erthrown its resting place our Mind: Yea so let this distract our Thoughts, that they Never find contentment in these Vaults of Clay. ELEG. XII MIght we not think 'twould come to This, that he Spent all his time upon Eternity, As if he came into the world t'obtain An happy passage to get out again? Ah, how could we expect His longer stay, When we perceived him to make hast away. Full fraught with Grace, unto the joyful Port Of Bliss, unto the King of Kings great Court? Where He's in Glory, here in Fame: and thus His wished Death makes him Amphibious. ELEG. XIII. NO more be Fates called Black, sigh through them He Has gotten his white cope, and liberty From all that Dungeon-darkness which weare in Whiles huddled up within these Clouds of sin. The Thread of's Life regained he now doth see Stretched through the Ones of all Eternity. Thus Atrop juggleth still with Pious Men, And cuts their THREAD to make it whole again. ELEG. XIV. O That some Seraphim His praise would sing, Or lend a Quill plucked from his heavenly wing, Whereby it might be writ for't does decline His Commendation that is not Divine. Young Muses are unskiled in such grave Themes, And hardly can acquire the sovereign streams O'th' Well of Life, for Helicon, as should Those that would cast their Verse in such a Mould, That it might form his Praise. That must not be Verse Rampant which sets forth Humility. Pens lightly praising Piety mistake, And, like bad Pencils, blot the work they make. Great Ornaments not suited well, deface, And oft Encomiums misexprest, disgrace. He that would show His sacred Worth, must be. A Limner of Incarnate Sanctity, Which if Men knew both it & Him, would sure Be thought His fit and only Portraiture. ELEG. XV. Pumped Helicon runs muddy; and that strain Must needs be jarring, that's wrung out'oth ' brain Distracted with true sorrows, which combined, Root out all Concord ' o'th' afflicted Mind. Such Lines as should wear Mourning, may not be Dressed a-la-mode i'th' garb of Poetry. Verse pricked with grief goes lame. There never appears A Phoebus 'mongst so many Showers of Tears. But yet we'll write, though weakly; some may call Perhaps our Faults here artificial: Men stutter most at greatest things: 'tis fit At such bright Themes to shut the Eyes o'th' Wit: That while (our passage stopped) weare at a stay We may make known the hardness of the way. ELEG. XVI. QUake Ranter-Gallants, and despair to be Exempt from Death's untimely stroke, sigh he Is fallen so soon, untainted with a Glance Sparkling from Lust, or vain Intemperance; Which hasten on your Fate, whose every Eye, As well as Mouth 's enslav d to Gluttony. You live so loosely, that your Lives may be Slipped from you by the rrue Mortality. Then through His Death cast thoughts upon your own, And so His Life shall in your lives be shown. ELEG. XVII. Rage's Tyrant Death: whatever thou canst do, Is but to force Him to o'ercome thee too, As well as this vain World: thou strik'st, but He Repels thy blow, and gains the victory. He could not put thee to this shameful flight, Until that thou hadst first begun the Fight. Thou strip'st him of His robes; 'tis true, but He Now wears these Trophies that He won from thee. ELEG. XVIII. SOon ripe, soon rotten? false! that Bud which springs So soon in Grace, shall by the King of Kings (Pruned by his servant Death's all-cutting knife) Ingraffed be into the Tree of Life. Rotten? Oh no: our soon-ripe Saint puts on A Life that ne'er shall see Corruption. 'Twas time for Him to leave the world, for even Here upon Earth His soul was fixed on Heaven. ELEG. XIX. TEll us no more of Lands, and Wealth: we see They are nought else but winged vanity; They fly from us, or we from them: but they Who from the Treasure of God's Word convey True wealth into their sacred souls, shall be Alive in death, and rich in Poverty. Hence 'twas renowned, peerless Saint, that thou Wouldst scarce look down upon these things below, But, shutting thine exterior Eye, didst find The sure sight i'th' eye of thy clear Mind. ELEG. XX. Unruly passions! shall we still Go mourning thus against our will? We know 'tis vain to grieve; again Our knowing this is all in vain. weare so entrapped i'th' Fates dire gin, That struggling clasps us faster in Our hearts with sorrow frozen, thaw At the Sunbeams of Reason's Law: And so the Knowledge that our Plaints are vain, Sith it can't help, makes us the more complain. ELEG. XXI. WE on this subject can't be dry, Whiles Helicon flows in our Eye Our heart's the pump of sorrow: so It's full still of successive woe, That, when it is exhausted by th' Pen, There springs up new, to fill it again. Our lighter Thoughts may make us weep; Some in our souls are sunk So deep, That they can't be fetched up by Art, Unless the Tripod of our Heart Should be made visible, from whence Phoebus might spend his Eloquence. But now, alas, sigh that we find No Emblem to set forth our Mind, How shall we show our griefs, which are Too weighty to be born i'th' Air, Or eke transported by a Quill To public view? Go too: we will Add this grief more unto the rest, That our vast Griefs can't be expressed. ELEG. XXII. YOung Saint Farewell! My work is done, Although it want perfection: But, when we speak unfeigned grief The largest Rhet'rick's to be brief. He that doth thus himself bemoan, Can't make an artificial Groan. His shattered words he will so state As shaken by the hand of Fate. Whoever has a soul like me, Disturbed with an Ecstasy, Thrown on me by Death's forked Dart Shot through the White of my sad heart, Wherein was seated He, in whom Now dead I see alive my doom. I le Groan no more by book, the Smart Of whipping Fate makes me by heart To learn such groans as do rebound Upon our Breasts with Silent Sound; These chief mount to Heavens Ears Accompanied with unwept Tears, Which a soul-seeing Eye may find Congealed within our stupid Mind. Farewell, Blessed Saint! a Farewel's only true To them (like thee) that bid the World adieu. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. FINIS.