40
Might give excuse to any common breast,
With the huge weight of so just grief oppress'd;
Yet let no portion of your life be stain'd
With passion, but your character maintain'd
To the last act. It is enough her stone
May honour'd be with superscription
Of the sole lady who had power to move
The great Northumberland to grieve, and love.

[1] 'His lady': the Lady Anne Cecil, daughter of the Earl of Salisbury.
See a previous note.

TO MY LORD ADMIRAL, OF HIS LATE SICKNESS AND RECOVERY.

With joy like ours the Thracian youth invades
Orpheus, returning from th'Elysian shades;
Embrace the hero, and his stay implore;
Make it their public suit he would no more
Desert them so, and for his spouse's sake,
His vanish'd love, tempt the Lethean lake.
The ladies, too, the brightest of that time
(Ambitious all his lofty bed to climb),
Their doubtful hopes with expectation feed, 9
Who shall the fair Eurydice succeed:
Eurydice! for whom his numerous moan
Makes list'ning trees and savage mountains groan;
Through all the air his sounding strings dilate
Sorrow, like that which touch'd our hearts of late.
Your pining sickness, and your restless pain,
At once the land affecting, and the main,
When the glad news that you were admiral
Scarce through the nation spread,[1] 'twas feared by all
That our great Charles, whose wisdom shines in you,
Would be perplexed how to choose anew. 20
So more than private was the joy and grief,
That at the worst it gave our souls relief,
That in our age such sense of virtue lived,
They joy'd so justly, and so justly grieved.
Nature (her fairest light eclipsed) seems
Herself to suffer in those sharp extremes;
While not from thine alone thy blood retires,
But from those cheeks which all the world admires.
The stem thus threaten'd, and the sap in thee,
Droop all the branches of that noble tree! 30
Their beauty they, and we our love suspend;
Nought can our wishes, save thy health, intend.
As lilies overcharged with rain, they bend
Their beauteous heads, and with high heaven contend;
Fold thee within their snowy arms, and cry--
'He is too faultless, and too young, to die!'
So like immortals round about thee they
Sit, that they fright approaching death away.
Who would not languish, by so fair a train
To be lamented, and restored again? 40

Or, thus withhel