A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
Piii7 Heere lyes thy Urne, O what a little blowe
Notes. In one source, this poem is attributed to “W. Hemmings” (Bodleian MS Malone 23). J.A. Taylor plausibly identifies Hemmings as William Hemminge, a satirist with anti-Puritan leanings (“Two Unpublished Poems” 237-38, 238 n.20).
“A Contemplation over the Dukes grave”
Heere lyes thy Urne, O what a little blowe
Has lay’d our Buckingham soe highe soe lowe!
Does all thy greatnes take up noe more roome
Then what a Begger must enioy? noe Tombe?
Noe hearse? noe monumentall pride? but all
5As ruinous about thee as thy fall?1
Sadd spectacle of greatnes; onely blest
In death noe Pagan nowe will curse thy rest
Noe not that Man of darknes,2 whose intent
Was to robb God of a comaundement
10And make a murther lawfull, Thou do’st lye
Safer in dust then in thy Princes eye
For ther’s a Fate belonging unto kings
That whome they most affect, are hated things.
A Cobler, or a Broome-man3 may enjoy
15That daingerous thinge call’d Frend without anoy
And when their labour, and the day expire
Drinke out their harvest by a seacole4 fyre.
The soldiour has his frend too, and his pay
When hee cann gett it, and drinks out that day
20Yet noe man envies these, but the crown’d head
Has his affection aw’d, and lymited
Even by these beasts of Love, that thinke it fashon
In kings to have affection, and not passion
How poore is majestie? marke! in this thinge
25The subject is more soveraigne then his King
I cann enjoy a frend till he’s tane hence
By natures lawe, not lawelesse violence
But in the smyle of Kings there lyes such fate
That to be lov’d, is to be ruinate.
30I have thy hand to’t Felton writt in blood
(The Character of hell) to prove this good
And it is writt in heaven too, wher thou’t fynd
Howe much thou’st wrong’d thy Maker, how mankind.
Source. Bodleian MS Malone 23, pp. 130-32
Other known sources. “Two Unpublished Poems” 239-240; LCRO MS DG 9/2796, p. 5; Beinecke MS Osborn Bagott Papers Chest 1, no. 16; Houghton MS Eng. 1278, item 16
Piii7
1 fall: a variant version includes here the couplet: “How pale thy honours look, and all thy paint / Of varnished glory now how dull, how faint” (Beinecke MS Osborn Bagott Papers Chest 1). <back>
2 that Man of darknes: i.e. Felton. <back>
3 Broome-man: street-sweeper. <back>
4 seacole: i.e. sea-coal; mineral coal as opposed to charcoal. <back>
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