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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  361. An Epitaph

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Andrew Marvell. 1621–1678

361. An Epitaph

ENOUGH; and leave the rest to Fame! 
‘Tis to commend her, but to name. 
Courtship which, living, she declined, 
When dead, to offer were unkind: 
Nor can the truest wit, or friend,         5
Without detracting, her commend. 
 
To say—she lived a virgin chaste 
In this age loose and all unlaced; 
Nor was, when vice is so allowed, 
Of virtue or ashamed or proud;  10
That her soul was on Heaven so bent, 
No minute but it came and went; 
That, ready her last debt to pay, 
She summ’d her life up every day; 
Modest as morn, as mid-day bright,  15
Gentle as evening, cool as night: 
—’Tis true; but all too weakly said. 
‘Twas more significant, she’s dead.