University of Virginia Library

To his much honoured Friend and Kinsman, Sr E. B.

Were I to draw Griefs picture to the life,
I'd take't from you now mourning for your wife:
Armes folded, fixed eyes, and full of tears,
Repeated sighes, neglected cloaths and hairs,
Pale face, no words but what are pumpt by force,
Small difference is betwixt you and a corse.
Sure 'tis not you, but your Ghost, come to tell
How much you lov'd your Lady, and how wel,
That having but one soul between you two,
She being gone, you had no more to do
But vanish strait; such power hath love to make
An husband pine away for his wifes sake;
Yet all this but of grief's the outward part,
I cannot limn the sorrow of your heart,
Nor can I see, nor can you shew the pain
And anguish which you inwardly sustain.
Only I can imagine that a flood
Runs from the red sea of your own heart-blood,
That every time a tear falls from your eye,
A crimson drop followes it instantly;
That every sigh, like to an hollow wind,
Doth but presage a sanguine showres behind;
That to your best beloved fain you wou'd
Swim through both rivers of your tears and blood.
But stay a little, whiles the furious tide
Of your swoln sorrow flowes on every side,
T' oppose it, were the next way to be drown'd;
But when it ebbs you may behold dry ground,
And walk securely through that sea to th' shoar
In which you might have been o'rewhelm'd before.
Heark then, your Lady calls to you from far,
And prayes you turn your grief for her, to care
Of your deer children, that, as Poets fain,
Minerva was the issue of Joves brain
Without a mother's help, so they may prove
The issue of your mind as of your love;
Thus for their being and their breeding too,
They'l owe a double duty unto you.