"In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth" by Anne Bradstreet Audio Recording

Anne Bradstreet In honour of that high and mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth. Proem Although, great Queen, thou now in silence lie, Yet thy loud herald fame doth to the sky Thy wondrous worth proclaim in every clime, And so has vowed whilst there is world or time. So great's thy glory and thine excellence, The sound thereof wraps every human sense, That men accounted no impiety To say thou wert a fleshly deity. Thousands bring offerings, though out of date, Thy world of honours to accumulate. Amongst hundreds hecatombs of roaring verse Mine bleating stands before thy royal hearse. Thou never didst nor canst thou now disdain To accept the tribute of a loyal brain. Thy clemency did earth to steam as much The acclamations of the poor as rich. Which makes me deem my rudeness is no wrong, Though I resound thy greatness amongst the throng. The Poem No phoenix pen nor Spencer's poetry, No speeds nor Camden's learned history, Eliza's works war's praise can e'er compact, The world's the theatre where she did act. No memories nor volumes can contain The eleven Olympiads of her happy reign. Who was so good, so just, so learned, so wise, From all the kings on earth she won the prize, Nor say I more than truly is her due, Millions will testify that this is true. She hath wiped off the aspersion of her sex That women wisdom lack to play the rex. Spain's monarch says not so, not yet his host, She taught them better manners to their cost. The Salic law had not in force now been If France had ever hoped for such a queen. But can you doctors now this point dispute? She's argument enough to make you mute. Since first the sun did run his near-run race, And earth had twice a year a new old face, Since time was time and man on manly man, Come show me such a phoenix if you can. Was ever people better ruled than hers? Was ever land more happy freed from stirs? Did ever wealth in England so abound? Her victories in foreign coasts resound. Ships more invincible than Spain's, Her foe she racked, she sacked, she sunk his armado. Her stately troops advanced to Lisbon's wall, Don Anthony Inn's right fore to install. She frankly helped Frank's brave, distressed king. The states united, now her fame do sing. She their protectrix was, they well do know, Unto our dread Varago what they owe. Her nobles sacrificed their noble blood, Nor men nor coin she shaped to do them good. The rude, untamed Irish she did quell, And tyrant-bound before her picture fell. Had ever prince such counsellors as she? Herself Minerva caused them so to be. Such soldiers and such captains never seen, As were the subjects of our palace queen. Her seamen through all straits the world did round, Terra incognita might know her sound. Her drake came laden home with Spanish gold, Her Essex took Cadiz, their Herculean hold. But time would fail me, so my wit would too, To tell of half she did or she could do. Semiramis to her is but obscure, More infamy than fame she did procure. She placed her glory but on Babel's walls, World's wonder for a time, but yet it falls. Fierce Tomras, Cirrus' headsman, Scythian's queen, Had put her harness off, but she had seen Our Amazon in the camp at Tilbury, Judging all valour and all majesty. Within that princess to have residence And prostrate yielded to her excellence. Dido, first foundress of proud Carthage walls, Who living consummates her funerals. A great Eliza but compared with ours, How vanished her glory, wealth, and powers. Proud, profuse Cleopatra, whose wrong name Instead of glory proved her country's shame. Of her what worth in stories to be seen, But that she was a rich Egyptian queen. Zenobia, potent empress of the East, And of all these without compare the best, Whom none but great Aurelius could quell, Yet for our queen is no fit parallel. She was a phoenix queen, so shall she be, Her ashes not revived, more phoenix she, Her personal perfections, who would tell, Must dip his pen in the Heliconian well, Which I may not, my pride doth but aspire, To read what others write and then admire. Now say, have women worth, or have they none? Or had they some, but with our queen is gone? Nay, masculines, you have thus taxed us long, But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong. Let such as say our sex is void of reason, No tis a slander now, but once was treason. But happy England, which had such a queen, O happy, happy, had those days still been, But happiness lies in a higher sphere, Then wonder not, Eliza moves not here. Full-fraught with honor, riches, and with days, She set, she set, like Titan in his rays. No more shall rise or set such glorious sun, Until the heaven's great revolution. If then new things their old form must retain, Eliza shall rule Albion once again. Her Epitaph Here sleeps the queen, this is the royal bed, Of the damask rose sprung from the white and red, Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling air, This rose is withered once so lovely fair. On neither tree did grow such rose before, The greater was our gain, our loss, the more. Another Here lies the pride of queens, pattern of kings, So blaze it fame, here's feathers for thy wings. Here lies the envied yet unparalleled prince, Whose living virtues speak though dead long since, If many worlds as that fantastic framed In every one be her great glory famed. 1643