WELL 1 died the world, that we might live to see | |
| This world of wit, in his Anatomy. | |
| No evil wants his good; so wilder heirs | |
| Bedew their fathers’ tombs with forcèd tears, | |
| Whose state requites their loss; whiles thus we gain, | 5 |
| Well may we walk in blacks, but not complain. | |
| Yet how can I consent the world is dead, | |
| While this Muse lives, which in his spirit’s stead | |
| Seems to inform a world, and bids it be, | |
| In spite of loss or frail mortality? | 10 |
| And thou, the subject of this well-born thought, | |
| Thrice noble maid, could’st not have found nor sought | |
| A fitter time to yield to thy sad fate, | |
| Than whiles this spirit lives, that can relate | |
| Thy worth so well to our last nephews’ eyne, | 15 |
| That they shall wonder both at his and thine. | |
| Admired match! where strives in mutual grace | |
| The cunning pencil, and the comely face; | |
| A task which thy fair goodness made too much | |
| For the bold pride of vulgar pens to touch. | 20 |
| Enough is us to praise 2 them that praise thee, | |
| And say, that but enough those praises be, | |
| Which, hadst thou lived, had hid their fearful head | |
| From th’ angry checkings of thy modest red. | |
| Death bars reward and shame; when envy’s gone, | 25 |
| And gain, ’tis safe to give the dead their own. | |
| As then the wise Egyptians wont to lay | |
| More on their tombs than houses; these of clay, | |
| But those of brass or marble were; so we | |
| Give more unto thy ghost than unto thee. | 30 |
| Yet what we give to thee, thou gavest to us, | |
| And may’st but thank thyself for being thus. | |
| Yet what thou gavest and wert, O happy maid, | |
| Thy grace profess’d all due, where ’tis repaid. | |
| So these high songs, that to thee suited bin, | 35 |
| Serve but to sound thy Maker’s praise in thine, 3 | |
| Which thy dear soul as sweetly sings to him | |
| Amid the choir of saints, and Seraphim, | |
| As any angel’s tongue 4 can sing of thee. | |
| The subjects differ, though the skill agree. | 40 |
| For as by infant years men judge of age, | |
| Thy early love, thy virtues, did presage | |
| What high part thou bear’st in those best of songs, | |
| Whereto no burden nor no end belongs. | |
| Sing on, thou virgin soul, whose lossful gain | 45 |
| Thy lovesick parents have bewail’d in vain; | |
| Ne’er may thy name be in our songs 5 forgot, | |
| Till we shall sing thy ditty and thy note. [JOSEPH HALL.] | |
