Tixall Poetry/Upon a Command to Write on My Father

by Gertrude Aston Thimelby

Upon

A Command to Write on My Father.

 

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Teares I could soone have brought unto this hearse,
And thoughts, and sighs, but you command a verse;
And here it is, I am so much concern'd
If ere I write I am againe unlearn'd.
For greife does all things els annihilate,
As not consistent with his high estate.
If you will be obay'd, He hold the pen,
But you must guide my hand, instruct me then.
Dead must I say? I doe the author see
That gave me life, and not that death kill me!
If, when alive, he was the cause of breath,
Why, being dead, does he not cause my death?
This is a miracle from you I know,
For I must live whilest you will have it so.
Nor can this new giv'n life be better spent
Then to contemplate this sad monument:
Th' inclosure of a worth the world nere knew,
But in his time, and it was from him too.
So sweet a winning way he had on all,
None knew but lov'd him, no desert so small
But he would grace, and still did something say,
That none could goe unsatisfy'd away.
We may presume in heaven he went no less,
By his so soone conferred happines.
Could we consider this but as we ought,
How vane's our sorrow! what is ever sought
By all our prayres but now he dos possess,
Tis then most fit that we should acquiesce.