Primates-Milites-Plebs

Primate [ S ]

Next might I see a rout of noblemen,

Earls, barons, lords, in mourning weeds attir’d:

I cannot paint their passions with my pen,

Nor write so quaintly as their woes requir’d;

Their tears and sighs some Homer’s quill desir’d:

But this I know, their grief was for his death

That there had yielded nature, life and breath.

M ILITES

Then came by soldiers trailing of their pikes:

Like men dismay’d their beavers were adown;

Their warlike hearts his death with sorrow strikes:

Yea, War himself was in a sable gown;

For grief you might perceive his visage frown:

And scholars came by with lamenting cries,

Wetting their books with tears fell from their eyes.

P LEBS

The common people they did throng in flocks,

Dewing their bosoms with their yearnful tears;

Their sighs were such as would have rent the rocks,

Their faces full of grief, dismay and fears:

Their cries struck pity in my listening ears,

For why the groans are less at hell’s black gate,

Than Echo there did then reverberate.

Some came with scrolls and papers in their hand;

I guess’d them suitors that did rue his loss:

Some with their children in their hand did stand;

Some poor and hungry with their hands across.

A thousand there sat wailing on the moss:

” O Pater Patride ! ” still they cried thus,

” Hatton is dead; what shall become of us? “

At all these cries my heart was sore amov’d,

Which made me long to see the dead man’s face;

What he should be that was so dear-belov’d.

Whose worth so deep had won the people’s grace.

As I came pressing near unto the place,

I look’d, and though his face were pale and wan,

Yet by his visage did I know the man.

No sooner did I cast mine eye on him

But in his face there flash’d a ruddy hue;

And though before his looks by death were grim,

Yet seem’d he smiling to my gazing view

(As if, though dead, my presence still he knew):

Seeing this change within a dead man’s face,

I could not stop my tears, but wept apace.

I call’d to mind how that it was a knight

That whilom liv’d in England’s happy soil:

I thought upon his care and deep insight

For country’s weal, his labour and his toil

He took, lest that the English state might foil;

And how his watchful thought from first had been

Vow’d to the honor of the maiden Queen.

I call’d to mind again he was my friend,

And held my quiet as his heart’s content:

What was so dear for me he would not spend?

Then thought I straight such friends are seldom hent.

Thus still from love to love my humor went,

That pondering of his loyalty so free,

I wept him dead that living honor’d me.

At this Astraea, seeing me so sad,

‘Gan blithely comfort me with this reply:

” Virgin, ” quoth she, ” no boot by tears is had,

Nor do laments aught pleasure them that die.

Souls must have change from this mortality;

For, living long, sin hath the larger space,

And, dying well, they find the greater grace.

” And sith thy tears bewray thy love ” , quoth she,

” His soul with me shall wend unto the skies:

His lifeless body I will leave to thee;

Let that be earth’d and tomb’d in gorgeous wise:

I’ll place his ghost among the hierarchies:

For as one star another far exceeds,

So souls in heaven are placed by their deeds. “

With that, methought, within her golden lap,

The sun-bright goddess, smiling with her eye,

The soul of Hatton curiously did wrap,

And in a cloud was taken up on high.

Vain dreams are fond, but thus as then dreamt I,

And more, methought I heard the angels sing

An Hallelujah for to welcome him.

As thus ascendant fair Astraea flew,

The nobles, commons, yea, and every wight

That living in his life-time Hatton knew,

Did deep lament the loss of that good knight.

But when Astraea was quite out of sight,

For grief the people shouted such a scream

That I awoke and start out of my dream.