AN elegy UPON THE DEATH OF THE mirror Of Magnanimity, the right Honourable Robert Lord Brooke; Lord general of the Forces of the Counties of Warwick, and Stafford, who was slain by A Musket shot at the siege of Lichfield, the second day of March, 1642.  

BAck blushing morn, to thine eternal bed,  
Ruffle for ever the tresses of thine head  
In some thick Cloud, and thou whose rays do burn  
The centre of the Universe, return:  
For if thy head beyond its Porch appears,  
Thyself, thyself must needs melt into tears.  
Bright Saint thy pardon, if my doleful Verse  
Do seem in sighing o'er thy glorious Hearse  
To envy death; for fame itself now wears  
Griefs Livery, and only speaks in tears.  
Brave Brooke is dead, like Lightning, which no part  
O 'th body touches, but first strikes the heart,  
This word hath murdered all; it can a shower  
Enforce from every eye, it hath a power  
To alter nature's course, how else should all  
Run wild with mourning, and distracted fall.  
Is't not a gross unttuth to say, thy breath  
Expired too soon? or that impartial Death  
Thy corpse too soon surprised? No, if thy years  
Be numbered by thy virtues, or our tears,  
Thou didst the old Methusalem outlive;  
Though Time not forty years' account can give  
Of thine abode on earth, yet every hour  
Of thine unpatterned life, by virtue's power  
A year in length surpassed, each well-spent day,  
The body maketh young, the soul makes grey.  
Ah cruel Death! who with one cursed Ball,  
Didst make the Atlas of our State to fall,  
In one thou all hast slain, whose death alone,  
A death will be unto a Million.  
Could none but his sweet nectared blood appease  
The fire-sprung Bullets heat? Must it needs seize  
His sacred face, itself there to enshrine,  
Not in an earthly, but a tomb divine.  
See luckless Lichfield that thou do not hide  
The precious blood, which from the wound did slide  
At this Lord's death, it may not cloistered be  
In thy frail earth, always impurity  
It did abhor, therefore in Sacrifice,  
Send it unto its head above the skies,  
And for an Altar whereon it to lay,  
A thousand thousand souls through grief this day  
Themselves to death have wept, whom thou Mayst take,  
And them conjoin thine Altar for to make.  
But lift not up thine head, lest that the skies  
In weeping showers of blood put out thine eyes.  
And is this blessed brook (whose crystal streams  
Swelled with such store of Grace, whose blissful beams  
Enlightened all) is it so soon drawn dry,  
Leaving its ancient current, to fill each eye  
With mournful tears, surely in Paradise  
Itself it now dischannels, where no vice  
Or shade of it appears, a place most pure,  
Where all such Saints for ever must endure.  
I might relate thine actions here on earth,  
Thy mystery of life, thy noblest birth,  
Outshined by nobler virtue, but how far  
Th' hast ta'en thy journey 'bove the highest star  
I cannot speak, nor whether thou art in  
Commission with a Throne, or Cherubin.  
I might unto the world, great Lord repeat,  
Thine own brave story, and tell it how great  
Thou wert in thy mind's Empire, and how all  
Who out live thee, see but the funeral  
Of glory: and if yet some virtuous be,  
They but weak apparitions are of thee.  
Thine actions were most just, thy words mature,  
And every scene of life from sin so pure,  
That scarce in its whole history we can  
Find Vice enough to say thou wert but man.  
'Tis past all mortals power, then much more mine,  
To tell what virtues dwelled within this shrine,  
Yet if illiterate persons walk this way,  
And ask what jewel glorifies this clay,  
Say, good brooks ashes this tomb hath in keeping,  
Then lead them forth, lest they grow blind withweeping.  
Tell but his name, no more, that shall suffice,  
To draw down floods of tears from driest eyes,  
Our griefs are infinite, therefore my Muse,  
Cast Anchor here, mine eyes cannot effuse  
Any more tears, this for thy comfort know,  
Fate cannot give us such another blow.   Ex opere (praesertim) Henrici Haringtoni, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}  

London printed for H. O. Anno Dom. 1642.