171

Now, boast thee, death! in thy possession lies
A lass unparallel'd.-Downy windows, close;
And golden Phoebus never be beheld

Of eyes again so royal!

30-v. 2.

172

Death lies on her, like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

35-iv. 5.

173

Have I not hideous death within my view,
Retaining but a quantity of life;

Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax
Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire ?*
What in the world should make me now deceive,

Since I must lose the use of all deceit ?

Why should I then be false; since it is true,
That I must die here, and live hence by truth!

174

Nothing in his life

Became him like the leaving it: he died
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

175

16-v. 4.

15-i. 4.

O, my love! my wife!

Death that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.-
Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?

35-v. 3.

* In allusion to the images made by the witches.

176

I have bewept a worthy husband's death,
And lived by looking on his images.

177

All things, that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.

178

24-ii. 2.

35-iv. 5.

O'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.

179

7-iii. 2.

O, now doth death line his dead chaps with steel;
The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;
And now he feasts, mouthing the flesh of men,
In undetermined differences of kings.

180

His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little :
And, to add greater honours to his age

16-ii. 2.

Than man could give him, he died, fearing God.

181

Full of repentance,

Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,

He gave his honours to the world again,

25-iv. 2.

His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.

182

Grief softens the mind,

And makes it fearful and degenerate.

25-iv. 2.

22-iv. 3.

183

The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day:
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,
Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array

He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth :
And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,
So is her face illumined with her eye.

184

She shook

The holy water from her heavenly eyes,

And clamour moisten'd: then away she started
To deal with grief alone.

185

Poems.

34-iv. 3.

In the glasses of thine eyes

I see thy grieved heart.

186

Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day:
So may you by my dull and heavy eye,
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.

187

Lo! here the hopeless merchant of this loss,

17-i. 3.

17-iii. 2.

With head declined, and voice damm'd up with woe, With sad set eyes and wretched arms across,

From lips new-waxen pale begins to blow

The grief away, that stops his answer so;
But wretched as he is, he strives in vain;

What he breathes out, his breath drinks up again.

As through an arch the violent roaring tide
Out-runs the eye that doth behold his haste;
Yet in the eddie boundeth in his pride
Back to the strait, that forced him on so fast,
In rage sent out, recall'd in rage being past:
Even so his sighs, his sorrows, make a saw,
To push grief on, and back the same grief draw.

188

My particular grief Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature,

Poems.

That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,

And it is still itself.

189

37-i. 3.

When my heart,

As wedged with a sigh, would rive* in twain;
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have (as when the sun doth light a storm)
Bury'd this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:

But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness,
Is like that mirth, fate turns to sudden sadness.

26-i. 1.

190

Sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell,

Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes:
Then little strength rings out the doleful knell.

191

"Tis with my mind

As with the tide, swell'd up unto its height,

That makes a still-stand, running neither way.

192

Poems.

19-ii. 3.

Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast. 17-ii. 1.

193

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;

And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.t

194

My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;
And I myself see not the bottom of it.

195

36-iii. 4.

26-iii. 3.

Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
Your tributary drops belong to woe,

Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.

* Split.

35-iii. 2.

† Colour.

196

My heart is great; but it must break with silence,
Ere't be disburden'd with a liberal* tongue.

197

17-ii. 1.

There's nothing in this world, can make me joy :
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,†

Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

198

Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,
And caterpillars eat my leaves away.

199

O, you kind gods,

Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
The untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up
Of this child-changed father!

200

As the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
Like strengthless hinges buckle‡ under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire

16-iii. 4.

22-iii. 1.

34-iv. 7.

Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs, Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief, Are thrice themselves.§

201

Our strength is all gone into heaviness,
That makes the weight!

202

19-i. 1.

30-iv. 13.

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

* Free.

† Ps. xc. 9.

16-iii. 4.

Bend, yield to pressure.

§ Anger and terror have been known to remove a fit of the gout; to give activity to the bed-ridden; and to produce instantaneous and most extraordinary energies.