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Upon that Pattern and Patron of Virtue, the truely pious, peerless & matchless Gentlewoman

MRS. ANNE BRADSTREET. right Panaretes, Mirror of her Age, Glory of her Sex, whose Heaven-born-Soul leaving its earthly Shrine, chose its native home, and was taken to its Rest upon 16th Sept. 1672.

Ask not why hearts turn Magazines of passions, And why that grief is clad in several fashions; Why she on progress goes, and doth not borrow The small'st respite from the extreams of sorrow, Her misery is got to such an height, As makes the earth groan to support its weight, Such storms of woe, so strongly have beset her, She hath no place for worse, nor hope for better Her comfort is, if any for her be, That none can shew more cause of grief then she. Ask not why some in mournfull black are clad; The sun is set, there needs must be a shade. Ask not why every face a sadness shrowdes; The setting Sun ore-cast us hath with Clouds. Ask not why the great glory of the Skye That gilds the stars with heavenly Alchamy, Which all the world doth lighten with his Rayes, The Persian God, the Monarch of the dayes; Ask not the reason of his extasie, Paleness of late, in midnoon Majesty, Why that the pale fac'd Empress of the night Disrob'd her brother of his glorious light. Did not the language of the stars foretel A mournfull Scoene when they with tears did Swell? Did not the glorious people of the Skye Seem sensible of future misery? Did not the low'ring heavens seem to express The worlds great lose and their unhappiness? Behold how tears flow from the learned hill, How the bereaved Nine do daily fill