AN ELEGY Sacred to the Memory of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey Knight; Whose Body was lately found Barbarously Murdered, and since Honourably Interred, the 31th of October, 1678.  

AN ELEGY! forbear: who ere profanes  
This lasting Name with cheap unhallowed strains,  
Commits a Murder second to their Gild,  
By whose infernal Hands his Blood was spilt.  
So vast a Merit, and so strange a Fate,  
Must not be Blazoned at the common Rate;  
With mercenary Rhyme, Set-forms of Praise,  
Or stale Applauses which bold Flatterers raise  
To pin upon some Hearse, whose waiting throng  
Mourn only 'cause the party lived so long.  
Those customary Sighs have here no part;  
We Weep in earnest, and untaught by Art.  
'Slight Griefs may speak aloud; but those that come  
From deep Resentments of our Loss, are dumb.  
As when fierce Thunder the World's Poles doth shake,  
Or Winds break Jail, and make the Earth to quake:  
Mortals amazed, can scarce exprese their Fears;  
But only court heavens aid with silent Prayers:  
So this dire Fact (which equal Terror brought)  
Stisles our Reason, and Benumbs our Thought.  

A Chilling Horror thrills through every Vein;  
Each honest man by Sympathy is slain,  
Or feels with Him, though not the Death, the pain.   
'Tis dangerous to be Good: well may we praise  
Virtue or Innocence; but who can raise  
A power that shall secure them, or withstand  
Th'assassinations of a bloody Hand?   

He whose clear Life might an Example be  
Of upright Justice, generous Charity;  
That public spirit that laid out his Store  
T'employ and cherish all industrious Poor;  
And ne'er with any did a Feud profess,  
But busy Treason, and lewd Idleness:  
Whose Actions were not framed merely for sight,  
Like artful Pieces placed in a fit light,  
That they may take at distance; but appear  
Most fair when you observe them most, and near.  

This LOYAL PATRIOT, by untimely Fate,  
And basest cruelties of unjust Hate,  
Falls as a Victim for the Church and State.   
Could we have seen with what composed Eyes  
He entertained th'astonishing surprise;  
How he with Christian grandeur did engage  
Their sharpest Malice, and their utmost Rage;  
't'had filled our minds with thoughts enlarged and high,  
And taught unhappy Heroes how to die.  
Methinks t'observe how Virtue draws faint breath,  
Subject to Slanders, Plots, and Violent Death;  
How many dangers on best actions wait,  
Right checked by Wrongs, and ill men fortunate:  
These moved Effects from an unmoved Cause,  
Might shake an easy Faith; heavens sacred Laws  
Might casual seem, and our irregular Sense  
Spurn at just Order, and blame Providence:  
Did we not know, there's an adored Will  
In all that haps to Men, or Good, or Ill,  
Suffered, or sent; and what is Man to pry,  
Into th'Abyss of such a Mystery?  
The Rising Sun to mortal sight reveals  
This lower Globe; but the bright Stars conceals.  
So may our Sense discover natural things;  
But those Divine soar above Humane Wings.  
Than not the Fate, but Fates bad Instrument  
Let us accuse, in each sad accident.  
Good men must die: Rapes, Incest MURDERS come;  
But Woe and Curses follow them by whom.  
God Authors all men's Actions, not their Sin;  
For that proceeds from devilish Lust within.  
Nor let the barbarous Actors hug their Crime,  
Because they lurk concealed for a time:  
Heaven sees, and will expose what they have done,  
No doubt, ere long, to Justice and the Sun.  
Mean time, loaded with Blood, Horror, and Fears,  
And that which crowns all Villainy, Despair;  
May they possess their PURGATORY here,  
And as cain's sin, so his Self-tortures bear.  
May they the wounding stripes of Conscience feel,  
That lashes Gild with whips of flaming steel,  
So long, till they shall count Death's pains far less,  
And freely come the Murder to confess.   

But as when stinking Exhalations rise,  
And with black storms invade the purer skies;  
They can't put out the Sun, though hide his Rays,  
Which quickly he more gloriously displays:  
So these vile hands in their Revenge are poor;  
In murdering Him, their Cause they murder more.  
Hell's Agents do but hasten him heavens way,  
And Powers of darkness antedate his day.  
In vain, in vain, is all their cursed spite:  
He still survives in Fields of blissful light,  
And with a pitying smile from thence looks down,  
Ennobled with a Martyrs brighter Crown;  
Whilst at th' Interment of his slumbering Clay,  
A weeping Nation shall just Honours pay.   
H. C.  
FINIS.   

Licenced,  
Octob. 30, 1678.   

LONDON: Printed for L. C. 1678.