N00251:13
A poem dedicated to the memory of the Reverend and excellent Mr. Urian Oaks,…A poem dedicated to the memory of the Reverend and excellent Mr. Urian Oakes,…
A poem dedicated to the memory of the Reverend and excellent Mr. Urian Oaks, the late pastor to Christ's flock, and president of Harvard-College, in Cambridge. Who was gathered to his people on 25d 5mo 1681. In the fiftieth year of his age. : [Seven lines of quotations]A poem dedicated to the memory of the Reverend and excellent Mr. Urian Oakes, the late pastor to Christ's flock, and praesident of Harvard-Colledge, in Cambridge. Who was gathered to his people on 25d 5mo 1681. In the fifty'th year of his age. : [Seven lines of quotations]
printed for John Ratcliff, 1682
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Weep with me, Reader! Never Poet had His Quill employed upon a Theme so sad As what just Providence (Grief grumble not) Do's with black Warrant Press me to! O what? This! OAKS is dead! One of the bitterest Pills (Compounded of three Monosyllables) That could have been dispensed! Absalom Sure felt not more Distress, Death, Danger, come With the three Darts of Joab!— Blest Shade! an Universal Tax of Sorrow Thy Country owes thee! Ah! we need not borrow The Prafica's: Say, Oaks is dead! and there! There is enough to squeeze a briny Tear From the most flinty Flint: Once at the Blow Of Moses, from a Rock, a Stream did flow; But look! th' Almighty's Rod now smites us home Oh! what Man won't a Mourner now become? ⟨p. 2⟩Dear Saint! I cannot but thy Hearse bedew With dropping of some Funeral Tears! I Rue Thy Death! I must, My Father! Father! say, Our Chariots and our Horsemen where are they? I the dumb Son of Croesus 'fore mine Eyes Have set, and will cry when […] dyes Oh! but a Verse to wait upon thy Grave, A Verse our Custom, and thy Friends will have: And must I brute my Tears? ah! shall I fetter My Grief, by studying for to mourn in Metre? Must too my cloudy Sorrows rain in Tune, Distilling like the softly Showers of June? Alas! My Ephialtes takes me! See it! I strive to run, but then I want my feet. What shall I do? Shall I go invocate The Muses to mine aid? No; That I hate! The sweet New-England-Poet rightly said, It is a most Unchristian Use and Trade1 Of some that Christians would be thought, If I Called Help, the Muses mother Memory Would be enough: He that Remembers well The Use and Loss of Oaks, will grieve his fill. I'd rather pray, that He, in whose just Eyes The Death of his dear Saints most precious is, And He who helped David to bewail His Jonathan, would not my Endeavours fail. A sprightly Effort of Poetic Fire Would even Transport me to a mad Desire: How could I wish, Oh! that the nimble Sun Of thy short Life before thy Day was done ⟨p. 3⟩Might backward Ten Degrees have moved! or Oh! that thy Corps might but have chanced for To have been buried near Elisha's bones! Oh! that the Hand which raised the Widows Sons Would give thee to thy Friends again! But, Fie! That Passion's vain! To sob, Why did it thou die? Is but an Irish Note: Death won't Restore His Stolen Goods till Time shall be no more.