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The Proem
Although, great Queen, thou now in silence lie,
Yet they loud herald Frame doth to the sky
Thy wondrous worth proclaim in every clime,
And so hath vowed while there is world or time.
So great's they glory and thiin excellence,
The sound thereof rapts every human sense,
That men account it no impiety,
To say thou wert a fleshly deity.
Thousands bring offerings (though out of date)
Thy world of honors to accumulate;
'Mongst hundred hecatombs of roaring verse,
Mine bleating stands before thy royal hearse.
Thou never didst nor canst thou now disdain
T' accept the tribute of a loyal brain.
Thy clemency did erst esteem as much
The acclamations of the poor as rich,
Which makes me deem my rudeness is no wrong,
Though I resound thy praises 'mongst the throng.
The Poem
No Pheonix pen, nor Spenser's poetry,
No speed's nor Camden's learned history,
Eliza's works, wars, praise, can e'er compact;
The world's the theatre where she did act.
No memories nor volumes can contain
The 'leven Olympiads of her happy reign.
Who was so good, so just, so learn'd , so wise,
From all the kings on earth she won the prize.
Nor say I more than duly is her due,
Millions will testify that this is true.
She hath wiped off th'aspersion of her sex,
That women wisdom lack to play the rex.
Spain's monarch, says not so, nor yet his host;
She taught them better manners, to their cost.
The Salic law, in force now had not been,
If France had ever hoped for such a queen.
But can you, doctors, now this point dispute,
She's arguemnt enough to m ake you mut.
Since first the Sun did run his ne'er run race,
And earrth had, once a year, a new old face,
Since time was time, and man unmanly man,
Come show me such a Pheonix if you can.
Was ever people better ruled than hers?
Was ever land more happy freed from stirs?
Did ever wealth in England more aboudn?
Her victories in foreign coasts resound;
Ships more invincible than Spain's, her foe,
She wracked, she sacked, she sunk his Armado;
Her stately troops advanced to Libson's wall,
Don Anthony in's right there to install.
She frankly helped rank's brave distressed king;
The states eintud now her fame do sing.
She their protctrix was; they well do know
Unto our dread virago, what they owe.
Her nobles sacrificed their noble blood,
Nor men nor coin she spared to do them good.
The rude unntamed Irish, she did quell,
Before her picture the proud Tyrone fell.
Had ever prince such counsellors as she?
Herself Minerva caused them so to be.
Such captains and such soldiers never seen,
As were the subjects of our Pallas queeen.
Her seamen through all straits the world did round;
Terra incognita might know the sound.
Her Drake came laden home with Spanish gold;
Her Essex took Cadiz, their Herculean hold.
But time would fail me, so my tongue would too,
To tell of half she did, or she could do.
Semiramis to her is but obscure,
More infamy than fame she did procure.
She built her glory but on Babel's walls,
World's wonder for a while, but yet it falls.
Fierce Tomris (Cyrus' headsman) Scythians' queen,
Had put her harness off, had she but seen
Our Amazon in th' Camp of Tilbury,
Judging all valor and all majesty
Within that princess to have residence,
And prostrate yielded to her excellence.
Dido, first foundress of proud Carthage walls
(Who living consummates her funerals),
A great Eliza, but compared with ours,
How vanisheth her glory, wealth, and powers.
Profuse, proud Cleopatra, whose wrong name,
Instead of glory, proved her country's shame,
Of her what worth in stories to be seen,
But that she was a rich Egyptian queen.
Zenobya, potent empress of the East,
And of all these without compare the best,
Whom none but great Aurelius could quell;
Yet for our Queen is no fit parallel.
She was a Pheonix queen, so shall she be,
Her ashes not revived, more Pheonix she.
Her personal perfectionsm, who would tell
Must dip his pen in th'Heleconian well,
Which I may not, my pride doth but aspire
TO read what others write and so admire.
Now say, have women worth? or have they none?
Or had they some, but with our Queen is't gone?
Nay masculines, you have thus taxed us long,
But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong.
Let such as say our sex is void of reason,
Know 'tis a slander now but once was treason.
But happy England which had such a queen;
Yea happy, happy, had those days still been.
But happiness lies in a high sphere,
Then wonder not Eliza moves not here.
Full fraught with honor, riches and with days
She set, she set, like Titan in his rays.
No more shall rise or set so glorius sun
Until the heaven's great revolution;
If then new things their old forms shall retain,
Eliza shall rule Albion once again.
Her Epitaph
Here sleeps the queen, this is the royal bed
Of th'damask rose, sprung from the white and red,
Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling air.
This rose is withered, once so lovely fair.
On neither tree did grow such rose before,
The greater was our gain, our loss the more.
Another
Here lies the pride of queens, pattern of kings,
So blaze it, Fame, here's feathers for they wings.
Here lies the envied, yet unparalleled prince,
Whose living virtues speak (though dead long since).
If many worlds, as that fantastic framed,
In every one be her great glory famed.
1643-1650
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