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Oh! rest in peace, dear friends, and, let it be
No pride to say, the sometime part of me.
What pain and anguish doth afflict the head,
The heart, and stomach, when the limbs are dead;
So grieved, I kiss your graves, and vow to die,
A foster-father to your memory.

35

Thomas James.

CXX

EPITAPH ON THE LADY MARY VILLIERS.

The Lady Mary Villiers lies

Under this stone: with weeping eyes
The parents that first gave her birth,
And their sad friends, laid her in earth.
If any of them, reader, were
Known unto thee, shed a tear:
Or if thyself possess a gem,

As dear to thee as this to them,
Though a stranger to this place,

Bewail in their's thine own hard case;
For thou perhaps at thy return

Mayst find thy darling in an urn.

CXXI

Thomas Carew.

5

10

EXEQUY ON HIS WIFE,

Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint,

Instead of dirges this complaint;

And for sweet flowers to crown thy hearse,

Receive a strew of weeping verse

From thy grieved friend, whom thou might'st see 5

Quite melted into tears for thee.

Dear loss since thy untimely fate,

My task hath been to meditate

On thee, on thee: thou art the book,

The library whereon I look,

Though almost blind. For thee, loved clay,
I languish out, not live, the day,

Using no other exercise

But what I practise with mine eyes :

By which wet glasses I find out
How lazily time creeps about

To one that mourns; this, only this,
My exercise and business is:
So I compute the weary hours
With sighs dissolvèd into showers.
Nor wonder if my time go thus
Backward and most preposterous;
Thou hast benighted me; thy set
This eve of blackness did beget,
Who wast my day (though overcast
Before thou hadst thy noontide past),
And I remember must in tears,

ΙΟ

15

20

25

Thou scarce hadst seen so many years
As day tells hours. By thy clear sun
My love and fortune first did run;
But thou wilt never more appear
Folded within my hemisphere,
Since both thy light and motion,

30

Like a fled star, is fall'n and gone,

And 'twixt me and my soul's dear wish
The earth now interposèd is,

35

Which such a strange eclipse doth make
As ne'er was read in almanack.

I could allow thee for a time
To darken me and my sad clime;
Were it a month, a year, or ten,
I would thy exile live till then ;
And all that space my mirth adjourn,
So thou wouldst promise to return;

40

And putting off thy ashy shroud

At length disperse this sorrow's cloud.
But woe is me! the longest date
Too narrow is to calculate
These empty hopes: never shall I
Be so much blest as to descry

45

50

A glimpse of thee, till that day come

Which shall the earth to cinders doom,
And a fierce fever must calcine

The body of this world like thine,

My little world! That fit of fire
Once off, our bodies shall aspire

55

To our souls' bliss: then we shall rise,

And view ourselves with clearer eyes

In that calm region, where no night

Can hide us from each other's sight.

60

Meantime, thou hast her, earth: much good

May my harm do thee. Since it stood

With Heaven's will I might not call

Her longer mine, I give thee all
My short-lived right and interest
In her, whom living I loved best:

65

With a most free and bounteous grief,
I give thee what I could not keep.
Be kind to her, and prithee look
Thou write into thy Doomsday book
Each parcel of this rarity,

70

Which in thy casket shrined doth lie:

See that thou make thy reckoning straight,

And yield her back again by weight;

For thou must audit on thy trust
Each grain and atom of this dust,
As thou wilt answer him that lent,
Not gave, thee, my dear monument.

75

So close the ground, and 'bout her shade
Black curtains draw; my bride is laid.

80

Sleep on, my Love, in thy cold bed

Never to be disquieted!

My last good night! Thou wilt not wake

85

Till I thy fate shall overtake :

Till age, or grief, or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust

It so much loves; and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there; I will not fail
To meet thee in that hallow vale.
And think not much of my delay;
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And every hour a step towards thee.
At night when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my west
Of life, almost by eight hours' sail,

Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gale.
Thus from the sun my bottom steers,
And my day's compass downward bears:
Nor labour I to stem the tide,

Through which to thee I swiftly glide.

'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield, Thou, like the van, first took'st the field, And gotten hast the victory

In thus adventuring to die

Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave.
But hark! my pulse, like a soft drum,

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Beats my approach, tells thee I come;
And slow howe'er my marches be,

I shall at last sit down by thee.

The thought of this bids me go on, And wait my dissolution

115

With hope and comfort. Dear (forgive
The crime) I am content to live
Divided, with but half a heart,

Till we shall meet and never part.

CXXII

120

Henry King.

ЕРІТАРН.

Our life is only death! time that ensu'th
Is but the death of time that went before;
Youth is the death of childhood, age of youth;
Die once to God, and then thou diest no more.

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By Thee and for Thee; and, when I was decayed,
Thy blood bought that, the which before was thine:
I am thy son, made with Thyself to shine;
Thy servant, whose pains Thou hast still repaid,
Thy sheep, thine image; and, till I betrayed
Myself, a temple of thy Spirit divine.

Why doth the devil then usurp on me?

5

ΙΟ

Why doth he steal, nay, ravish that's thy right?
Except Thou rise, and for thine own work fight,
Oh! I shall soon despair, when I shall see
That Thou lov'st mankind well, yet wilt not choose me,
And Satan hates me, yet is loth to lose me.

John Donne.

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