| O FOR some honest lover's ghost, | |
| Some kind unbodied post | |
| Sent from the shades below! | |
| I strangely long to know | |
| Whether the noble chaplets wear | 5 |
| Those that their mistress' scorn did bear | |
| Or those that were used kindly. | |
| |
| For whatsoe'er they tell us here | |
| To make those sufferings dear, | |
| 'Twill there, I fear, be found | 10 |
| That to the being crown'd | |
| T' have loved alone will not suffice, | |
| Unless we also have been wise | |
| And have our loves enjoy'd. | |
| |
| What posture can we think him in | 15 |
| That, here unloved, again | |
| Departs, and 's thither gone | |
| Where each sits by his own? | |
| Or how can that Elysium be | |
| Where I my mistress still must see | 20 |
| Circled in other's arms? | |
| |
| For there the judges all are just, | |
| And Sophonisba must | |
| Be his whom she held dear, | |
| Not his who loved her here. | 25 |
| The sweet Philoclea, since she died, | |
| Lies by her Pirocles his side, | |
| Not by Amphialus. | |
| |
| Some bays, perchance, or myrtle bough | |
| For difference crowns the brow | 30 |
| Of those kind souls that were | |
| The noble martyrs here: | |
| And if that be the only odds | |
| (As who can tell?), ye kinder gods, | |
| Give me the woman here! | 35 |
