Poems (1872) :: :: University of Virginia Library

Is Death so greate a gamster, that he throwes
Still at the fairest? must I ever lose?
Are we all but as tarriers, first begun,
Made, and togeather put, to be undone?
Will all the ranke of frendes in whom I trust,
Like Sodome's trees, yeild me no fruit but dust?
Must all I love, as carelesse sparkes that flye
Out of a flinte, but shew their worth and dye?

O where do my-for-ever-losses tend?
I could already by some buried frend
Count my unhappy yeares: and should the sun
Leave me in darkenesse as her losse hath done,
By those few frendes I have yet to entombe
I might, I feare, account my yeares to come.

What neede our canons then be so precise
In registers for our nativities?
They keep us but in bondes, and strike with feares
Rich parents, till their children be of yeares.

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For should all lose and mourne, they might, as I,
Number their yeares by every elegie.

Those bookes to summe our dayes might well have stood
In use with those that liv'd before the Flood.
When she indeed that forceth me to write
Should have been borne, had Nature done her right,
And at five hundred yeares be lesse decayd
Than now at twenty is the fairest mayd.
But Nature had not her perfection then,
Or, being loath for such longe-liveinge men
To spend the treasure which she held so pure,
She gave them women apter to endure;
Or providently knowinge there were more
Countreyes which askd for people from her store,
Nature was thrifty, and did thinke it well
If for some one parte each one did excell—
As this for her neate hand, that for her hayre,
A third for her fine foote, a fourth was fayre.
And seld' all beauties mett in one, till she—
All others' lands els stor'd—came finally
To people our sweet Isle, and seeinge now
Her substance infinite, she 'gan to bowe
To Lavishnes in every nuptiall bed,
And she her fairest was that now is dead.

Dead, as my ioyes for ever, ever be!
And if a woman fayre and good as she

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Tread on her, grant O may she there become
A statue like Lott's wife, and be her tombe!

Or let the purple violett grow there,
And knowe no revolution of the yeare,
But full of dew with ever-droopinge head,
Shew how I live since my best hopes are dead.

Dead as the world to virtue. Murthers, theeves,
Can have their pardons, or at least repreives;
The sword of Iustice hath beene often won
By letters from an execution.
Yet vowes nor prayers could not keepe thee here,
Nor shall I see thee next returninge yeare;
Thee, with the roses, springe and live againe.
Th'art lost for ever as a drop of raine
Falne in a river: for as soone I may
Take up that drop, or meet the same at sea
And knowe it there, as e'er redeeme thee gone,
Or knowe thee in the grave when I have one.

O had that hollow vault where thou dost lye
An eccho in it, my stronge phantasy
Would winne me soone to thinke her wordes were thine,
And I would howerly come, and to thy shrine
Talke, as I often did to talke with thee,
And frame my wordes, that thou shouldst answer me
As when thou livedst. I'd sigh and say I lov'd,
And thou shouldst doe so too, till we had mov'd,

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With our complaints, to teares each marble cell
Of those dead neighbours which about thee dwell.

And when the holy Father came to say
His orisons, wee'd aske him if the day
Of miracles were past, or whether he
Knowes any one whose fayth and pietie
Could raise the dead; but he would answere, None
Can bringe thee backe to life: though many one
Our cursed dayes afford, that dare to thrust
Their hands prophane, to raise the sacred dust
Of holy saintes out of their beds of rest.
Abhorred crimes! Oh may there none molest
Thy quiet peace, but in thy arke remaine
Untoucht, as those the old one did containe;
Till He that can reward thy greatest worth
Shall send the peacefull Dove to fetch thee forth!