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AN elegy vpon the death of the high and renowned princess, our late sovereign ELIZABETH. By I. L.  
 Royal blazon or coat of arms.  
Imprinted at London for John dean, at Templebarre. 1603.   
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An elegy vpon the death of the high renowned princess, our late sovereign ELIZABETH.  

THE gentle season of the joyous Spring,  
That teaches all the little birds to sing.  
In every open Field, and shady three,  
Their sugared notes of sweet variety,  
Awakes my sleepy Muse while to play,  
That in the shade of silence butted lay,  
As loth to interrupt their pleasant ditty,  
With broken strains of grief, or songs of pity.  
I grant at first I should but lowly mask,  
And not begin with such a lofty task,  
But softly warble on a shepherds reede,  
The while my bleating flocks securely feed,  
For fear the waxed wings wherewith I fly,  
Should melt away with mounting up too high:  
Yet pardon grief a greater fault then this,  
And give me leave( though I haue done amiss)  
A while to sing my April-song by roate,   Decorative head and tail piece 
Now every cuckoo learns to tune a note:  
Till Philomela grieving for our wrong,  
Lament our sorrow in some sweeter song:  
Mine infant Muse begins but now to creep,  
Yet lo, already she has learnde to weep,  
To weep for her, from whose untimely death,  
( untimely born) she borrows all her breath:  
And early learns her praises to rehearse,  
That with the famed of her immortal verse,  
A never dying life she may obtain,  
And to herself a life of glory gain.  
Assist me then( ye Heliconian Dames)  
And with the breath of your divinest names,  
enrich my brain, inspire my barren Quill,  
And heave my Verses higher by your skill;  
That I may sorrowfully sit and sing  
About the banks of your Castalian spring.  
Or, rather, sing yourselves, ye learned crew,  
For who can sing so learnedly as you?  
With Cyprisse branches let your brows be crowned,  
And lifting up your voices silver sound,   Decorative head and tail piece 
With all your learned instruments in hand,  
Lament the Lady of the Faiery-land.  
Or, rather, break your instruments in twain,  
Nor ever play, nor ever sing again,  
But from your brows the velvet feathers tear,  
And break the crimson Coronets you wear,  
And weep, and wail, and melt away to tears,  
And wring your hands, and rend your yellow hears,  
For silver Cynthia has eclipsed her light,  
And with her absence makes eternal night.  
She that so gallantly your dances lead,  
That could so sweetly sing, so softly tread,  
And with her music make your Consorts even:  
In scorn of earth, is gone away to heaven:  
leaving your chaster trains to march alone.  
See where she sits vpon Apollos throne,  
Within whose golden chariot she doth ride,  
And of his sister is become his Bride.  
Lament, lament, you shepherds daughters all,  
And eke you Virgins chast, lament her fall:  
The Goddesse of your sports is leapt in led,   Decorative head and tail piece 
And faire Virginia's fairest queen is dead;  
Oh, come, and do her corpse with flowers embraue,  
And play some solemn music by her grave,  
Then sing her Requiem in some doleful Verse  
Or do the songs of Colin Clout rehearse.  
mourn, Phoebus mourn, and turn the day to night,  
dimmed is the lamp, that shone so piercing bright,  
Those starry eyes haue lost their glorious sight,  
That lent thy Planet, and the world her light.  
And you fair golden skies that took such pride,  
Where ever blessed Beta did abide.  
Your azured curtains over her to spread,  
With stars( like studs of gold) embellished:  
rain down fresh tears that they may drown your mirth,  
And with your weeping water all the earth:  
mask up your brows and wear your mourning coats;  
Nor let the birds, with their melodious notes,  
The empty air a school of music make,  
As heretofore for faire Elizas sake.  
In stead of those let all the fatal Fowles,  
The crooking ravens and disastrous owls,   Decorative head and tail piece 
Fill every corner with their hellish cries,  
And with their ghastly faces fright our eyes.  
weep, Flora, weep, and doffe thy spangled gown,  
And wear no more thy flower enameld crown:  
Cast not thy Tapstry mantles at our feet,  
Nor fill the fragrant air with odours sweet;  
For lo, the Flower which was so fresh and gay,  
And made november like another May,  
How daintily so ere it did compose  
The beauty of the white and crimson Rose,  
The Flower is parched, the silken leaf is blasted,  
The Roote decayed, and all the glory wasted.  
Let Israel weep, the house of jacob mourn,  
zion is fallen, and judah left forlorn,  
The Hill of Hermon drops no precious oil,  
Nor fruitful Bashan, from his fartest soil,  
But Dauids throne has all his beauty lost,  
So far admit'd through every foreign cost.  
The paradise and Eden of our Land  
Planted and kept by GODS almighty Hand:   Decorative head and tail piece 
Where milk and honey Canaan-like did flow,  
And Flowers of peace, and fruits of plenty grow;  
Where Vines and Oliues, evermore were seen,  
Vines ever Fresh, and Oliues ever green:  
With Brambles now and briars is overcast,  
And like a desert desolate and wast.  
The royal daughter of that royal King,  
To whom all nations did their presents bring,  
So bright of late, and glorious to behold,  
Shining in garments of embroidered gold,  
Esther our queen, whose famed( with triumph crowned)  
Haman of spain had never force to wound,  
In spite of whom although he dared to strive  
She has preserude her people all alive:  
This royal queen, the heauens bright reflex;  
This foe of pride, this pride of all her sex,  
This Phoenex of the world, the worthiest Dame  
That ever acted on the Stage of famed:  
( Hers be the ioy) to our eternal sorrow  
Has paid to death the life that she did borrow.  
Ah! why should spiteful Nature hid away,   Decorative head and tail piece 
So rich a treasure in the lowly day.  
And bury in the bowels of the ground  
The rarest Iem the world had ever found?  
Or, why, respects she not her children more?  
But leaves the earth so rich, and men so poor.  
spain, clap thy hands, and laugh while we lament,  
Our staff is broken, and our treasure spent,  
The staff of ioy, the treasure of our ease,  
The Life, the crown, the glory of our Peace:  
Righteous Astraea from the earth is banished,  
And from our sight the morning star is vanish't  
Which did to us a radiant light remain,  
But was a Comet to the eye of spain:  
From whose chased beams so bright a beauty shin'de,  
That all their whorish eyes were strike blind.  
Beta is dead, the glory of our pride;  
Oh, who had thought that Beta could haue dyde?  
Beta is dead, the honour of her race,  
That has so long vp-held the royal Mace,  
Whose predecessors all haue princes been,  
And she herself a Princely Mayden-Queene.   Decorative head and tail piece 
Farewell( sweet Prince) where ever thou do bide,  
Whether in earth, or by some angels side:  
Farewell( great queen) that art of Gody blessed,  
Well may thy butted bones securely rest:  
Beta, farewell, and let thy purest spirit  
( Where ever fled) the purest place inherit.  
go blessed soul, and up to heaven climb,  
Among the Angels seat thee there betime,  
Shine like an angel with thy starry crown,  
And milk-white Robes descending fairly down,  
waked in the blood of the unspotted lamb,  
That slay the Beast, and made the Dragon tame.  
There let thy sacred life( most sacred Dame)  
Thy famous virtue, and thy virtuous famed;  
Whereof so many Pens haue writ the Story  
receive the crown of everlasting glory.  
Feast ever there and feed on sweetest ioy,  
Without the taste of any sharp annoy:  
live ever there, in that celestial sky,  
Where( spite of death) thou nevermore shalt die;  
rain ever there on that Elyzian green:   Decorative head and tail piece 
Eliza, well may be Elyziuius queen.  
And give me leave now I haue tuned long  
The tragic accent of my dole-full Song  
with Philomela to the silent dark;  
while to mount, and with the morning lark  
To greet that rising sun, which from the North  
displays his beams, and darts his glory forth.  
discover then your crystal shining faces,  
Ye learned Muses, and you lovely Graces,  
Set a full Period to your woeful cries,  
And clear your brows, and wipe your blubbered eyes,  
Nor do so sadly sigh, but sweetly sing,  
And crown with triumphs our created King,  
See how the sun for ioy of our good hap  
rains showers of gold into his Lemans lap:  
See how the earth, to grace this joyful day,  
Attyres herself in all her best array,  
And paintes her coat with party coloured flowers,  
Dewd with the drops of sweet Rose-water showers,  
that glistering gay and smelling sweet  
All like a queen she might her bridegroom meet.   Decorative head and tail piece 
hark how the feathered choristers do sing  
Their Aue Caesar, to our crwoned King,  
With so divine and delicate a sound  
That through the air the neighbouring groves rebound  
The sweet alarms of their sugared notes,  
tuned with their hollow bills and swelling throats.  
Lift up your heads, ye Christians that survive,  
To see so faire a prince preserved alive,  
With hands and hearts to testify your mirth,  
Ring peals of gladness through all the earth.  
chant loud Poeanas to his lofty famed,  
And songs of praise to high Iehouas Name,  
Who still remaines as he hath still decreed  
A God to jacob, and to Iacobs seed,  
And has not left his little flock alone,  
But kept a man to sit on Dauids Throne,  
That he may raze the wall of babel down,  
And to his kingdom add another crown.  
Laugh not( proud spain) nor lift not up thy crest,  
But hid thy horns thou seven headed beast:  
The day is come thou hast so long expected,   Decorative head and tail piece 
Yet from thy rage our Land is still protected:  
Till now thy bloody thoughts on hope haue fed,  
But now thy thoughts with all thy hopes be dead,  
And still our vine does flourish more and more.  
In spite of ravening wolf, or raging boar.  
For though our Deborah be dead and gone,  
Whose sceptre scourged the towers of Babylon,  
Yet Gideon lives, and like a man of God,  
Suffers not Madian to be Israels rod:  
But tramples still vpon thy craven crown,  
And breaks thy horns, and treads thy altars down.  
Long may he flourish with his royal seed  
That from his loins so friutfully proceed.  
Long he may reign and high advance his crest  
Stretching his conquering arms from East to West,  
Maulgre their beards, that haue with force appointed  
To lift their arm against the Lords anointed;  
Who though but james the first of that degree,  
Yet Lyon-heart the second he shall be:  
The name of Lyon-heart becomes him best,  
witness the lion on his Lordly breast:   Decorative head and tail piece 
A happy sign, that for defence of zion  
Our valiant Lord will prove a valiant lion.  
Lo here a sea of ioy, a world of woe,  
Yet, lo, the sea the world doth overflow,  
See how our Phoenix mounts about the skies,  
And from the neast another Phoenix flies,  
How happily before the change did bring  
A Mayden-Queene, and now a manly King,  
Whose crown and Empire does so widely stretch,  
And over all the Land of britain reach.  
Then let us all applaud this happy day,  
And with united voices strongly pray  
That he may long our royal King remain,  
And peace and plenty crown his blessed rain,  
That victories self may triumph on his Lawnce,  
And through the world his honoured famed advance.  
So shall his realm, so shall his sceptre flourish,  
And that his crown, and this his kingdom nourish  
So honour still on virtue shall be grounded,  
The fool derided, and the proud confounded.  
So shall his foes abate, his friends accrue,  
And GOD haue praise to whom the praise is due.   
FINIS.