Classic Poem

Does not the Sun call in his light, and day
Like a thin exhalation melt away?
Both wrapping up their Beams in Clouds, to be
Themselves Close Mourners at the Obsequie
Of this great Monarch? does his Royal Bloud,
Which th'Earth late drunk in so profuse a floud,
Not shoot through her affrightned womb, and make
All her convulsed Arteries to shake
So long, till all those hinges that sustain,
Like Nerves, the frame of nature shrink again
Into a shuffled Chaos? Does the Sun
Not suck it from its liquid Mansion,
And Still it into vap'rous Clouds, which may
Themselves in bearded Meteors display,
Whose shaggy and dishevel'd Beams may be
The Tapers at this black Solemnitie?
You seed of Marble in the Womb accurst,
Rock'd by some storm, or by some Tigress nurst,
Fed by some Plague, which in blind mists was hurld,
To strew infection on the tainted World;
What fury charm'd your hands to Act a deed,
Tyrants to think on would not weep, but bleed?
And Rocks by instinct so resent this Fact,
They'ld into Springs of easie tears be slack'd.
Say sons of tumult, since you think it good,
Still to keep up the trade, and Bath in Blood
Your guilty hands, why did you then not state
Your Slaughters at some cheap and common rate?
Your gluttonous and lavish Blades might have
Devoted Myriads to one publick Grave;
And lop'd off thousands of some base allay,
Whilst the same Sexton that inter'd their clay,
In the same Urne their Names too might entomb,
But when on him you fixt your fatall Doom,
You gave a blow to Nature, since even all
The stock of man now bleeds too in his fall.
Could not Religion, which you oft have made
A specious glosse your black designs to shade,
Teach you, that we come nearest Heaven when we
Are suppled into acts of Clemency?
And copy out the Deity agen,
When we distill our mercies upon men?
But why do I deplore this ruine? He
Only shook off his fraile Humanity,
And with such calmnesse fell, he seem'd to be,
Even lesse unmov'd and unconcern'd than we;
And forc'd us from our Throes of Grief to say,
We only died, he only liv'd that Day:
So that his Tomb is now his Throne become,
T'invest him with the Crown of Martyrdome;
And death the shade of nature did not shroud
His Soul in Mists, but its clear Beams uncloud,
That who a Star in our Meridian shone,
In Heaven might shine a Constellation.