A Funeral Elegy lyrics

To Master JOHN PETER
of Bowhay in Devon, Esquire.

The love I bore to your brother, and will do to his memory, hath craved from me this last duty of a friend; I am herein but a second to the privilege of truth, who can warrant more in his behalf than I undertook to deliver. Exercise in this kind I will little affect, and am less addicted to, but there must be miracle in that labor which, to witness my remembrance to this departed gentleman, I would not willingly undergo. Yet whatsoever is here done, is done to him and to him only. For whom and whose sake I will not forget to remember any friendly respects to you, or to any of those that have loved him for himself, and himself for his deserts.
W. S.

A Funeral Elegy.

Since time, and his predestinated end,
Abridged the circuit of his hopeful days,
Whiles both his youth and virtue did intend
The good endeavors of deserving praise,
What memorable monument can last

Whereon to build his never-blemished name
But his own worth, wherein his life was graced. . .
Sith as that ever he maintained the same?
Oblivion in the darkest day to come,
When sin shall tread on merit in the dust,

Cannot rase out the lamentable tomb
Of his short-lived deserts; but still they must,
Even in the hearts and memories of men,
Claim fit respect, that they, in every limb
Remembering what he was, with comfort then