Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best, With honour, wealth, and peace happy and blest, What ails thee hang thy head, and cross thine arms, And sit i' the dust to sigh these sad alarms? What deluge of new woes thus over-whelm The glories of thy ever famous Realm? What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise? Ah, tell thy Daughter she may sympathize. And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse, With some sad sighs honour my absent Herse And kiss this paper for thy loves dear sake, Who with salt tears this last Farewel did take. And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me, These o protect from step Dames injury. And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains Look to my little babes, my dear remains. And if I see not half my dayes that's due, What nature would, God grant to yours and you The many faults that well you know I have Let be interr'd in my oblivious grave If any worth or virtue were in me, Let that live freshly in thy memory And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harms, Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms. How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend, How soon't may be thy Lot to lose thy friend, We are both ignorant, yet love bids me These farewell lines to recommend to thee, That when that knot's untied that made us one, I may seem thine, who in effect am none. The sentence past is most irrevocable, A common thing, yet oh inevitable. In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come And take thy way where yet thou art not known, If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none: And for thy Mother, she alas is poor, Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.Īll things within this fading world hath end, Adversity doth still our joyes attend No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet, But with death's parting blow is sure to meet. In this array 'mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam. I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run'st more hobling then is meet In better dress to trim thee was my mind, But nought save home-spun Cloth, i' th' house I find. At thy return my blushing was not small, My rambling brat (in print) should mother call, I cast thee by as one unfit for light, Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight Yet being mine own, at length affection would Thy blemishes amend, if so I could: I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw. Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, expos'd to publick view, Made thee in raggs, halting to th' press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).
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