| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XVI. Crossed Hands and Closed Eyes
An Epitaph | | By Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) |
| | | ENOUGH: and leave the rest to Fame. | |
| ’Tis to commend her, but to name. | |
| Courtship which, living, she declin’d, | |
| When dead, to offer were unkind, | |
| Where never any could speak ill, | 5 |
| Who would officious praises spill? | |
| Nor can the truest wit, or friend, | |
| Without detracting, her commend. | |
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| To say, she lived a virgin chaste | |
| In this age loose and all unlaced; | 10 |
| Nor was, when vice is so allow’d, | |
| Of virtue or asham’d or proud; | |
| That her soul was on Heaven so bent, | |
| No minute but it came and went; | |
| That, ready her last debt to pay, | 15 |
| She summ’d her life up every day; | |
| Modest as morn, as mid-day bright, | |
| Gentle as evening, cool as night: | |
| ’Tis true: but all too weakly said; | |
| ’Twere more significant, she ’s dead. | 20 | | | |
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