Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint,
Instead of dirges, this complaint;
And for sweet flow'rs to crown thy hearse,
From thy griev'd friend, whom thou might'st
Quite melted into tears for thee.
Dear loss! since thy untimely
My task hath been to
On thee, on thee; thou art the book,
The library whereon I look,
Though almost blind.
For thee (lov'd clay)I languish out, not live, the day,
Using no other
But what I practise with mine eyes;
By which wet glasses I find
How lazily time creeps
To one that mourns; this, only this,
My exercise and bus'ness is.
So I compute the weary
With sighs dissolved into showers.
Nor wonder if my time go
Backward and most preposterous;
Thou hast benighted me; thy
This eve of blackness did beget,
Who wast my day (though
Before thou hadst thy noon-tide past)And I remember must in tears,
Thou scarce hadst seen so many
As day tells hours.
By thy clear
My love and fortune first did run;
But thou wilt never more
Folded within my hemisphere,
Since both thy light and
Like a fled star is fall'n and gone;
And 'twixt me and my soul's dear
An earth now interposed is,
Which such a strange eclipse doth
As ne'er was read in almanac.
I could allow thee for a
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,
And putting off thy ashy shroud,
At length disperse this sorrow's cloud.
But woe is me! the longest
Too narrow is to
These empty hopes; never shall
Be so much blest as to descryA glimpse of thee, till that day
Which shall the earth to cinders doom,
And a fierce fever must
The body of this world like thine,(My little world!).
That fit of
Once off, our bodies shall
To our souls' bliss; then we shall
And view ourselves with clearer
In that calm region where no
Can hide us from each other's sight.
Meantime, thou hast her, earth; much
May my harm do thee.
Since it
With heaven's will I might not
Her longer mine,
I give thee
My short-liv'd right and
In her whom living I lov'd best;
With a most free and bounteous grief,
I give thee what I could not keep.
Be kind to her, and prithee
Thou write into thy doomsday
Each parcel of this
Which in thy casket shrin'd doth lie.
See that thou make thy reck'ning straight,
And yield her back again by weight;
For thou must audit on thy
Each grain and atom of this dust,
As thou wilt answer Him that lent,
Not gave thee, my dear monument.
So close the ground, and 'bout her
Black curtains draw, my bride is laid.
Sleep on my love in thy cold
Never to be disquieted!
My last good-night!
Thou wilt not
Till I thy fate shall overtake;
Till age, or grief, or sickness
Marry my body to that
It so much loves, and fill the
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there,
I will not
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay;
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the
Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And ev'ry hour a step towards thee.
At night when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my
Of life, almost by eight hours' sail,
Than when sleep breath'd his drowsy gale.
Thus from the sun my bottom steers,
And my day's compass downward bears;
Nor labour I to stem the
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 hath the
In thus adventuring to
Before me, whose more years might craveA just precedence in the grave.
But hark! my pulse like a soft
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
With hope and comfort.
Dear
The crime) I am content to
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet and never part.
