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19NOV 1953

LIBRARY

TO THE RIGHT HONOUrable, Robert Lord Sidney of Penshurst, Vicount Lisley, Lord Chamberlain to the Queen's Majesty, & L. Governor of Flushing, and the Castle of Ramekins.

GEORGE WITHER presents these ElegiacSonnets, and wisheth double Comfort after his two-fold sorrow.

Anagrams on the name of Sir William Sidney Knight, deceased.

Gulielmus Sidneius.
En vilis, gelidus sum.
* But *

Ei nil luge, sidus sum,

BESIDE our great and universal care,
(Wherein you one of our chief sharers are)
To add more grief unto your griefs begun,
Whilst we a Father lost, you lost a Son,
Whose hapless want had more apparent been,
But darkened by the Other 'twas unseen,

Which well perceiving, loth indeed was I
The Memory of one so dear should die :
Occasion thereupon I therefore took

Thus to present your Honour with this Book.
(Unfained and true mournful Elegies,

And for our HENRY, my last Obsequies)

That he which did your Son's late death obscure,
Might be the mean to make his fame endure.,
But this may but renew your former woe:
Indeed and I might well have doubted so,
Had not I known that Virtue, which did place you
Above the common sort, did also grace you
With gifts of mind, to make you more excel,
And far more able, Passion's rage to quell.
You can and may with moderation moan,
For all your comfort is not lost with one:
Children you have, whose Virtues may renew
The comfort of decaying Hopes in you.
Praised be God, for such great blessings giving.
And happy you to have such comforts living.
Nor do I think it can be rightly said

You are unhappy in this One that's dead:

For notwithstanding his first Anagram

*

Frights, with Behold, now cold, and vile I am ; Yet in his last he seems more cheerful far,

And joys with Soft, mourn not, I am a Star. Oh, great preferment! what could he aspire That was more high, or you could more desire?

* The English of this Anagram.

Well, since his soul in heaven such glory hath,
My Love bequeaths his Grave, this Epitaph.

EPITAPH.

Here under lies a SIDNEY: and what then?
Dost think here lies but relics of a man?
Know 'tis a cabinet did once include

Wit, Beauty, Sweetness, Court'sie, Fortitude.

So let him rest, to Memory still dear,
Till his Redeemer in the clouds appear.

Mean while accept his Will, who meaning plain
Doth neither write for Praise, nor hope of Gain.
And now your Tears and private Grief forbear
To turn unto our Great and Public Care.

Your Honour's true honorer,
George Wither.

To the whole world in general, and more
particularly to the Isles of Great Britain
and Ireland, &c.

BIG-SWOLN with sighs, and almost drown'd in tears'
My Muse out of a dying trance up rears;
Who yet not able to express her moans,
(Instead of better utterance) here groans.
And lest my close-breast should her health impair,
Is thus amongst you come to take the air.
I need not name the griefs that on her seize,
Th'are known by this beyond th' Antipodes.
But to your view some heavy rounds she brings,
That
you may bear the burthen, when she sings:
And that's but Woe, which you so high should strain,
That heaven's high vault might echo't back again.
Then, though I have not strived to seem witty,
Yet read, and reading note, and noting pity.
What though there's others show in this more art,
I have as true, as sorrowful a heart:

What though Opinion give me not a Name,

And I was ne'er beholding yet to Fame?
Fate would (perhaps) my Muse, as yet unknown,
Should first in Sorrow's livery be shown.
Then be the witness of my discontent,
And see if griefs have made me eloquent:
For here I mourn for your-our public loss,
And do my penance at the Weeping Cross.

The most sorrowful,

G. W.

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