Classic Poem

So to a stronger guarded Fort we use
More battring Engines. Lest that death should loose
A nobler Conquest, Fates Conspiring come
Like Friendship payr'd into an Union.
Tell me, you fatall Sisters, what rich Spoil,
What worthy Honour, is it to beguile
One Maid by two Fates? while you thus bereave
Of life, you do not conquer, but deceive:
Me thinks an old decay'd and worn-out face,
A thing that once was Woman, and in Grace,
One who each Night in Twenty Boxes lies
All took asunder: one w'hath sent her Eyes,
Her Nose, and Teeth, as Earnests unto Death.
Pawns to the Grave till she resign her Breath
And come her self, me thinks this Ruine might
Suffice and glut the Envy of your spight;
Why aime you at the Fair? must you have one
Whose every Limb doth shew perfection?
Whose well Compacted Members harmony
Speaks her to be Natures Orthography?
Must she appear your Rage? Why then farewell,
All, all the Vertue that on Earth did dwell.
Why do I call it Vertue? 'tis dishonour
Thus to bestow that Mortall little on her;
Something she had more Sacred, more Refin'd
Than Vertue is, something above the Mind
And low Conceit of Man, something which Lame
Expression cannot reach, which wants a Name
'Cause 'twas ne'r known before; which I express
Fittest by leaving it unto a Guess;
She was that one, lent to the Earth to shew
That Heavens Bounty did not only ow
Endowments unto Age, that Vertues were
Not to the Staff Confin'd, or the Gray-hair;
One that was fit ev'n in her Youth to be
An Hearer of the best Philosophy;
One that did teach by Carriage; One whose looks
Instructed more effectually than Books,
She was not taught like Others how to place
A loose disordered Hair: the Comb and Glass,
As curious Trifles, rather made for loose
And wanton softness than for honest Use;
She did neglect: no Place left for the Checks
Of Carefull Kindred; nothing but the Sex
Was womanish in her; She drest her Mind
As others do their Bodies, and refin'd
That better part with Care, and still did wear
More Jewels in her Manners than her Ear;
The World she past through, as the brighter Sun
Doth through unhallowed Stews and Brothels run,
Untouch'd, and uncorrupted; Sin she knew
As honest Men do Cheating, to eschew
Rather than practice; She might well have drest
All Minds, have dealt her Vertues to each Brest,
Enrich'd her Sex, and yet have still been one
Fit for th' amazed Gods to gaze upon.
Pardon, thou Soul of Goodness, if I wrong
Thine Ample Vertues with a sparing Tongue,
Alas, I am compell'd, speaking of thee,
To use one of thy Vertues, Modesty.
Blest Virgin, but that very Name which cals
Thee blest into an Accusation fals;
Virgin is Imperfection, and we do
Conceive Increase to so much Beauty due;
And alas Beauty is no Phenix; why,
O why then wouldst thou not vouchsafe to try
Those Bonds of freedom, that when death did strike,
The World might shew, though not the same, the like?
Why wert not thou stamp'd in another Face,
That whom we now lament we might embrace?
That after thou hadst been long hid in Clay
Thou might'st appear fresh as the early Day,
And seem unto thy wondring Kindred more
Young, although not more Vertuous than before?
But I disturb thy Peace, sleep then among
Thy Ancestors deceas'd, who have been long
Lockt up in Silence, whom thy carefull Love
Doth visit in their Urns, as if thou'dst prove
Friendship in the forgetfull dust, and have
A Family united in the Grave.
Enjoy thy death, Blest Maid, nay further do
Enjoy that Name, that very little too;
Some use there is in Ill; we not repine
Or grudge at thy Disease; it did refine
Rather than kill; and thou art upwards gone,
Made purer even by Corruption.
Whiles thus to Fate thou dost resign thy Breath,
To thee a Birth-day 'tis, to us a Death.