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A Dirge Upon The Death Of The Right Valiant Lord, Bernard Stuart.
By Robert Herrick
Hence, hence, profane! soft silence let us have
While we this trental sing about thy grave.
Had wolves or tigers seen but thee,
They would have showed civility;
And, in compassion of thy years,
Washed those thy purple wounds with tears.
But since thou'rt slain, and in thy fall
The drooping kingdom suffers all;
Chor. This we will do, we'll daily come
And offer tears upon thy tomb:
And if that they will not suffice,
Thou shall have souls for sacrifice.
Sleep in thy peace, while we with spice perfume thee,
And cedar wash thee, that no times consume thee.
Live, live thou dost, and shall; for why?
Souls do not with their bodies die:
Ignoble offsprings, they may fall
Into the flames of funeral:
Whenas the chosen seed shall spring
Fresh, and for ever flourishing.
Chor. And times to come shall, weeping, read thy glory
Less in these marble stones than in thy story.
Extra Info:
Trental, a dirge; but see Note.
Cedar, oil of cedar.
Lord Bernard Stewart, fourth son of Esme, third Duke of Lennox, and himself created Earl of Lichfield by Charles I. He commanded the king's troop of guards, and was killed at the battle of Rowton Heath, outside Chester, Sept. 24, 1645.
Clarendon (History of the Rebellion, ix. 19) thus records his death and character: "Here fell many gentlemen and officers of name, with the brave Earl of Litchfield, who was the third brother of that illustrious family that sacrificed his life in this quarrel. He was a very faultless young man, of a most gentle, courteous, and affable nature, and of a spirit and courage invincible; whose loss all men lamented, and the king bore it with extraordinary grief."
Trentall. Properly a set of thirty masses for the repose of a dead man's soul. Here and elsewhere Herrick uses the word as an equivalent for dirge, but Sidney distinguished them: "Let dirige be sung and trentalls rightly read. For love is dead," etc. "Hence, hence profane," is the Latin, procul o procul este profani of Virg. Æn. vi. 258, where "profane" is only equivalent to uninitiated.
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