William Lilly's History of His Life and Times, from the Year 1602 to 1681Lilly, William
Religion
William Lilly's History of His Life and Times, from the Year 1602 to 1681
Lilly, William
Astrologers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Astrology; Lilly, William, 1602-1681
Our Prophet's gone; no longer may our ears
Be charm'd with musick of th' harmonious spheres.
Let sun and moon withdraw, leave gloomy night
To shew their NUNCIO'S fate, who gave more light
To th' erring world, than all the feeble rays
Of sun or moon; taught us to know those days
Bright TITAN makes; follow'd the hasty sun
Through all his circuits; knew th' unconstant moon,
And more unconstant ebbings of the flood;
And what is most uncertain, th' factious brood,
Flowing in civil broils: by the heavens could date
The flux and reflux of our dubious state.
He saw the eclipse of sun, and change of moon
He saw, but seeing would not shun his own:
Eclips'd he was, that he might shine more bright,
And only chang'd to give a fuller light.
He having view'd the sky, and glorious train
Of gilded stars, scorn'd longer to remain
In earthly prisons: could he a village love,
Whom the twelve houses waited for above?
The grateful stars a heavenly mansion gave
T' his heavenly soul, nor could he live a slave
To mortal passions, whose immortal mind,
Whilst here on earth, was not to earth confin'd.
He must be gone, the stars had so decreed;
As he of them, so they of him, had need.
This message 'twas the blazing comet brought;
I saw the pale-fac'd star, and seeing thought
(For we could guess, but only LILLY knew)
It did some glorious hero's fall foreshew:
A hero's fall'n, whose death, more than a war,
Or fire, deserv'd a comet: th' obsequious star
Could do no less than his sad fate unfold,
Who had their risings, and their settings told.
Some thought a plague, and some a famine near;
Some wars from France, some fires at home did fear:
Nor did they fear too much: scarce kinder fate,
But plague of plagues befell th' unhappy state
When LILLY died. Now swords may safely come
From France or Rome, fanaticks plot at home.
Now an unseen, and unexpected hand,
By guidance of ill stars, may hurt our land;
Unsafe, because secure, there's none to show
How England may avert the fatal blow.
He's dead, whose death the weeping clouds deplore,
I wish we did not owe to him that show'r
Which long expected was, and might have still
Expected been, had not our nation's ill
Drawn from the heavens a sympathetic tear:
England hath cause a second drought to fear.
We have no second LILLY, who may die,
And by his death may make the heavens cry.
Then let your annals, Coley, want this day,
Think every year leap-year; or if't must stay,
Cloath it in black; let a sad note stand by,
And stigmatize it to posterity.
_Here follows the Copy of an Indictment filed against Mr. Lilly, for
which see page 167 of his Life_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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