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 |  |
ON AN INFANT VNBORNE, & THE MOTHER DYEING IN TRAUELL.
Within this Graue there is a Graue intomb'd:Heere lyes a Mother & a Child inwomb'd;
'Twas strange that Nature so much vigour gaue
To one that nere was borne to make a Graue.
Yet, an iniunction stranger, Nature will'd her
Poore Mother, to be Tombe to that which kill'd her;
And not with soe much crueltye content,
Buryes the Childe, the Graue, & Monument.
Where shall we write the Epitaph? whereon?
The Childe, the Graue, the Monument is gone;
Or if vpon the Child we write a staff,
Where shall we cut the Tombs owne Epitaph?
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As on a Table carpetted with dust,
Make chisells of our fingers, & ingraue
An Epitaph both on the Child & Graue
Within the dust: but when some dayes are gone,
Will not that Epitaph haue need of one?
I know it will; yet graue it there so deepe,
That those which know the lesse, & truly weepe,
May shedde their teares so iustly in that place,
Which we before did with a finger trace,
That filling vp the letters, they shall lye
As inlayde christall to posteritye:
Where (as on glass) if any write another,
Let him say thus: Heere lyes a haples Mother,
Whom cruell Fate hath made to be a Tombe,
And keepes in travell till the day of Doome.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |