The English Parnassus, or, A helpe to English poesie containing a collection of all rhyming monosyllables, the choicest epithets, and phrases : with some general forms upon all occasions, subjects, and theams, alphabeticaly digested : together with a short institution to English poesie, by way of a preface / by Joshua Poole.

Elegies. v. Lamentable.

My blubbering pen her sable tears let fall In Characters right Hieroglyphicall,

And mixing with my tears are ready turning My late white-paper to a weed of mourning, Or inke and paper, strive how to impart My words, the weeds, my thoughts were in my heart; Or else the blots, unwilling are my ••imes, And their sad cause, should live till after times. Fearing if men, their subject should descrie, They forthwith would dissolve to tears, and die. Invailed in a sable weed, she sate, * 1.1 Singing a Song, wh••ch stones dissolved at; How shall we find a fitting monument For brass and marble were they placed here Would fret, and melt in tears to lie so near Repeating ore The Story of his vertues, untill I Not write, but am my self his Elegie, Without disturbing the harmonious sphears, Weele bath below thy memory in tears Such grief, as who can utter it. Doth not vent forth his sorrow, but h••s wit, I envie death, the treasure of his sleep Th' illiterate vulgar in a well-tun'd breath Lament his loss, and learnedly chide death. It were a shame for all, thou being gone, Not to have power to die with grief alone. But, 'twere proud piety if we Should think by prayers to alter Heavens Decree, His death, the crime of destiny Children untaught, by instinct for thee weep My distracted fears Have no commerse with reasonable tears, Whose death commands A subsidie from every private eye, Fetch all the Spices that Arabia yields; Distill the choysest flowers of the fields: And when in one their best perfections meet, Embalm her corps, that she may make them sweet. Infectious grief striking all hearers. Tears the best Expressours of true sorrow, speak the rest, Every tear speaks a dumb Elegie, The wine of lif••'s drawn out, and from this time

Meer lees is left this vault. Let him whose lines a private losse deplore, Call them to weepe, that never wept before. Call not the winds, nor bid the rivers stay, For though the sighs, and tears they could repay, Which injur'd lovers mourners for the dead, Captives and Saints have breath'd away and shed; Yet we should want to make our sorrow fit For such a cause as now doth silence it. So ••weell instructed are my tears To••y fall in ordered characters. My grief is more audacious, give me one, Who every day hath heard a dying groan! The subject of my verses may suffice To draw new tears from dry and weary eyes. To shrine his name within an Elegi••, I may forget to drink, to eat to sleepe, Remembring thee, but when I do to weepe, In well weigh'd lines, that men shall at thy herse Envie the sorrow that brought forth my verse, May my dull understanding, &c. All joyes have now one common funeral. Our grief we cannot call A•• passion, since the ground is ra••ional, Our tears and sighes may be excus'd, though those To deluges, and these to tempests rose. No pen can plead excuse For Elegies, howle all who cannot sing, For tombes bring turfe who cannot marble bring, I oft have verse on meaner subjects made, Should I give presents, and leave debts unpaid? Want of invention, here is no excuse, The matter I shall find and not produce, And as it fares in crowds, I nothing doubt, So much would passe, that nothing can get out, And in the work which now my thoughts intend, I shall find nothing hard, but how to end. Had this been for some meaner persons herse, I might have then observ'd the lawes of verse, But here they faile, nor can I hope t' expresse In numbers, what the world counts numberlesse, I dare not (learned shade) bedew thy herse

With tears, unlesse that impudence in verse Would cease to be a sin; and what were crime In prose, would be no injury in rhime. Upon Whose death the Ocean might turn Helicon. O who will give me tears? Come all ye spring•• Dwell in my head and eyes; come clouds and rain, My grief hath need of all the warry things That Nature hath produc'd. Let every vein Suck up a river to supply mine eyes, My weary weeping eyes too dry for me, Unlesse they get new conduits, new supplies To bear them out, and with my state agree. What are two shallow foords, two little spouts Of a lesse world? The greater is but small, A narrow cupboard for my griefs and doubts, Which want provision in the midst of all; Verses, ye are too fine a thing, too wise For my rough sorrowes; cease, be dumbe and mute, Give up your feet and running to mine eyes, And keep your measures for some lovers lute, Whose grief allows him musick and a rhime For mine excludes both measure, tune, and time. Now unto sorrow must I tune my song, And set my harp to notes of saddest woe. Befriend me night best patronesse of grief, Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw, And work my flatter'd fancy to belief, That heaven and earth are colou••'d with my woe, My sorrowes are too dark for day to know; The leaves should all be black whereon I write, and letters where my tears have washt, a wannish white. v. Elegies on Dr. Donne, annexed to his Poems. Quarles Emblems joynd with his divine Poems. Habbingtons Castara, the third part. Sr. John ••eamounts Poems. Johnsonus Virbius upon Ben. Johnson. Ʋpon Mr. Edw. King fellow of Chr. Coll. in Cambridge.

Notes

• * 1.1

  v. Browns Pastor. 1. Book. Song 5. upon Prince Henry.