Page:A poem humbly dedicated to the great patern of piety and virtue Catherine Queen Dowager - on the death of her dear lord and husband King Charles II (IA poemhumblydedica00behn).pdf/7

 Transpierc'd with Anguish, ev'n to Death Transform'd, So She bewail'd Her God! so sigh'd, so Mourn'd; So His blest Image in Her Heart remain'd, So His blest Memory o're Her Soul still Reign'd! She Liv'd the Sacred Victim to deplore, And never knew, or wisht a Pleasure more.

But when to Your Apartment You were brought, And Grief was Fortify'd with second Thought; O how it burst what e're its Force withstood, Sight to a Storm, and swell'd into a Flood; Courage, which is but a peculiar Art By Honour taught; where Nature has no Part: When e're the Soul to fiercer Passions yield, It ceases to be brave and quits the field; Do's the abandon'd sinking heart expose Amid'st Ten Thousand Griefs, its worst of Foes.

Your Court, what Dismal Majesty it wears, Infecting all around with Sighs and Tears; No Soul so dull, so insensible is found, Without concern to tread the hallowed Ground; Awful, and silent, all the Rooms of State, And Emptiness is Solemn there, and great; No more Recesses of the sprightly Gay, But a Retreat for Death, from Noise and Day: Eccho's from Room to Room we may pursue, Soft sighs may hear, but Nothing is in view; Like Groves inchanted, where wreck'd Lovers ly, And breath their Moans to all the Passers-by; Who no kind Aids to their Relief can bring, But Eccho back their Pitying sighs agen.