Tore not off his Mother's veil. To th' Church he did allow her dress, Peace, which he loved in life, did lend When Age and Death called for the score No surfeits were to reckon for. Death tore not-therefore-but sans strife So while these lines can but bequeath His life still kept alive in thee. -:0: To the Queen: AN APOLOGY FOR THE LENGTH OF THE FOLLOWING PANEGYRIC. When you are mistress of the song, Mighty queen, to think it long, Were treason 'gainst that majesty Yet thinks it so. But even that too New matter for our Muse supplies, Say then, dread queen, how may we do Needs must your noble praises' strength, Now stretch thyself (fair Isle) and grow; spread wide As sits above thy best capacity. Are they not odds? and glorious? that to thee -> Those mighty genii throng, which well might be Each one an age's labour, that thy days Are gilded with the union of those rays Whose each divided beam would be a sun, Sure if for these thou mean'st to find a seat, Th' 'ast need, O Britain! to be truly great. And so thou art; their presence makes thee so: Of the glad earth they tread on; while with thee And teach it to expatiate, and swell To majesty and fulness, deign to dwell; Thou by thyself may'st sit (blest Isle), and see Time yet hath dropt few plumes since Hope turned Joy, And took into his arms the princely Boy, Whose birth last blest the bed of his sweet mother, And bade us first salute our prince, a brother. The Prince and Duke of York. Bright Charles! thou sweet dawn of a glorious day! Henry and James? or Mars and Phoebus rather? O thou full mixture of those mighty souls peace and war; thou for whose manly brow Thy little self in less: trace in these eyne The beams that dance in those full stars of thine. From the same snowy alabaster rock Those hands and thine were hewn ; those cherries mock The coral of thy lips. Thou wert of all This well-wrought copy the fair principal. Lady Mary. Justly, great Nature, didst thou brag and tell See'st thou that Mary there? O, teach her mother Fellow this wonder too, nor let her shine Alone; light such another star, and twine 5 Lady Elizabeth. These words scarce wakened Heaven, when, lo! our vows Sat crowned upon the noble infant's brows. Th' art paired, sweet princess: in this well-writ book And when th' hast summed up all those blooming blisses, Close up the book, and clasp it with thy kisses. So have I seen (to dress their mistress May) Peeped from their buds, showed like the garden's eyes The New-born Prince. And now 'twere time to say, sweet queen, no more. That word's a warrant, by whose virtue I |