outline of tombstone which surrounds text  
AN ELEGY On the Lamented Death of the most Illustrious Princess, ANNE dutch of YORK, etc. Who departed this Life (after a long indisposition of ●●dy) upon Friday the Thirty first of March, 1671.  

WHat ails the Court? what is it It bemoans?  
Each angle so abounds with sighs & groans:  
Is this a Prologue to some Tragedy?  
Or is the World's great Dissolution nigh?  
Or doth one better than the World now die?   

'Tis York's great Duchess dies; Death, thou'rt unkind  
To crop the Flower, and leave the Weeds behind;  
If thou thy sovereign power needs must show,  
Go take whole Millions to the shades below  
Of Common sort, let such thy power know.   

But when to Prince's Beds thou dost draw near,  
To sway thy Seepter in their Royal Sphere,  
Thou dost proclaim, that earthly Gods must die,  
And in the dust with common Mortals lie.  
As fatal objects of Mortality.   

So falls the Cedar with the tender Grass,  
So Heroes o'er the Stygian Lake do pass,  
With the poor Captive that doth to it creep;  
Princes with Peasants quietly do sleep,  
For Death his Court of Equity doth keep.   

Virtue no more must in this Sex be sought,  
Save what i'th' pattern of the Queen is taught.  
For since this Princess bids the world adieu,  
Virtue Astrea-like to Heaven flew,  
And but one Royal Copy to pursue.   

Nor can that Sex longer of Virtue's boast,  
Theirs are but Pebbles to the Gem they've lost,  
And whilst with Foils theirs but deceive the eye,  
Hers Diamond-like through sable curtains pry,  
And with new lustre now adorn the sky.   

She now above Celestial Orbs doth shine,  
Excelling their lustre, should they all combine;  
And now in blessed Paradise is set  
A Jewel fit for such a Cabinet:  
May we by Her example thither get.   

Nor need we fear she'd visit us again,  
If they proud of Her, did Her not detain,  
With Halalujahs did Her Breath expire,  
And now with Saints she sings in Heaven's blessed Choir,  
And big with praise, doth to that Throne aspire.   

Into some doleful Grove let's now retire,  
And there our grief-swelled Lungs in sighs suspire;  
Could but our Eyes to Seas converted be,  
we'd soon exhale out that humidity,  
And drain them with our tears to siccity.   

That thence-from we may sacred water have  
Enough to moisten the too early Grave  
Of Her whose death hath struck us dead with fears,  
For every one a Niobe appears,  
we're all Heraclitus' by our tears.   

Each Lady drowns with tears her sparkling Eyes,  
Becoming Martyrs to Griefs cruelties.  
Thus all bemoan the loss of her whose State  
Is now most happy, why should we blame our fate?  
And weep in vain, since it is now too late.   

Yet this we know, should Mortals but forbear  
To speak her Virtues, and her Worth declare,  
The Immortal Angels would her Merits tell,  
And let the world know, how she them excel,  
But this, alas, the world knows too too well.