Page:Tixall Poetry.djvu/386

Farewel, mine emperour celestiall!
And most beautiful prince of al mankinde
Adue, my Lord, of hert moste lyberal!
Farewel, my swetist, bothe soule and minde
So loving a spouse shall I nevir finde!
Adue, my soveraine! very gentilman!^[1]
Farewel, dere herte, as hertely as I can.—

Adue, the fairist that evir was bore!
Alas, I may not see your blessid face!
Nowe welaway that I shal se no more
Thy blessid visage, so replete with grace,
Wherin is printed my parfite solace!
Adue, mine hertis rote and al for ever!
Nowe farith wel, I must from thee discever!

 

P. 6. The Mr P., on whose little daughter this poem was composed, was probably Mr Persall, brother to Sir W. Persall, of Canwell, in Staffordshire, who married Frances Aston, second daughter of the first Lord Aston.

The comparison, in the second stanza, of the essence of roses, extracted by the still, to the soul of the child received into heaven, is fanciful and pretty, and poetically expressed.

As Plato called God the "Great Geometer," from the order, regularity, and contrivance, which are visible in the universe, so, when considered as the Author of Nature, and the Ruler of the Elements, he may, with equal propriety, be styled the "Almighty Chemist."

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1. The first chapter of Markham's "Booke of Armorie," is entitled, "The difference between Charles and Gentleman:" and it ends thus: "From the offspring of gentlemanly Japhet, came Abraham, Moses, Aaron, and the prophets, &c. &c. also the king of the right line of Mary, of whom that only absolute gentleman Jesus was born, gentleman by his mother Mary, princesse of coat armour."

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