The Whole Works of William Browne of Tavistock ... Now first collected and edited, with a memoir of the poet, and notes, by W. Carew Hazlitt, of the Inner Temple |
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 | The Whole Works of William Browne |  |
O that thou wert no Actor in this Play,
My sweetest Cælia! or diuorc'd away
From me in this: ô Nature! I confesse
I cannot looke vpon her heauinesse
Without betraying that infirmitie
Which at my birth thy hand bestow'd on me.
Would I had dide when I receiu'd my birth!
Or knowne the graue before I knew the earth!
Heauens! I but one life did receiue from you,
And must so short a loane be paid with two?
Cannot I dye but like that brutish stem
Which haue their best belou'd to dye with them?
O let her liue! some blest powre heare my cry!
Let Cælia liue and I contented dye.
My sweetest Cælia! or diuorc'd away
From me in this: ô Nature! I confesse
I cannot looke vpon her heauinesse
Without betraying that infirmitie
Which at my birth thy hand bestow'd on me.
Would I had dide when I receiu'd my birth!
Or knowne the graue before I knew the earth!
Heauens! I but one life did receiue from you,
And must so short a loane be paid with two?
Cannot I dye but like that brutish stem
Which haue their best belou'd to dye with them?
O let her liue! some blest powre heare my cry!
Let Cælia liue and I contented dye.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |