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Home  »  The Book of Restoration Verse  »  Thomas Sprat (1635–1713)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

On His Mistress Drowned

Thomas Sprat (1635–1713)

SWEET stream, that dost with equal pace,

Both thyself fly and thyself chase,

Forbear a while to flow;

And listen to my woe.

Then go, and tell the sea: That all its brine

Is fresh, compared to mine;

Inform it, that the gentler dame,

Who was the life of all my flame,

In th’ glory of her bud,

Has passed the fatal flood;

Death, by this only stroke, triumphs above

The greatest power of love.

Alas! alas! I must give o’er;

My sighs will let me add no more.

Go on, sweet stream, and henceforth rest

No more than does my troubled breast.

And if my sad complaints have made thee stay:

These tears, these tears, shall mend thy way.