Tixall Poetry/To Cannall, in Mourning

by Gertrude Aston Thimelby

To

Cannall, in Mourning.

 

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What all in black! all mourning! O that wee
Mistooke the place, or saw not what we see.
In favor of our eyes we must be gon,
For if we stay, we shall pertake a moane
Not common, since all obiects speake this crosse
As no particular but a general losse.
Come gratitude, and let selfe-love depart;
Weele stay and hear it, though it breake our hart.
Is this the house to which none ever came
Unwilling or unwelcome? Happy fame,
But not eternall! for alas, no more
It can be now as it has beene before.
See the sad owners, whose contented looke
Us'd to assure us such, as planet stroake,
(Though kind and civill) now instruct our feares,
And tell our paine ith' language of their teares.
By which moist characters how soone is sed
A mothers losse, the Lady Persall dead.
A mother unto all, her flowing hart
Deny'd not any, as her child, a part.
Her liberall hand could not decrease her store,
Since her more liberall wish still gave us more.
Gratefull let us pay back the debt we owe,
Whilst thus our eyes in silent sorrows flowe.

 

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