| ACCEPT thou Shrine of my dead Saint, | |
| Instead of Dirges this complaint; | |
| And for sweet flowres to crown thy hearse, | |
| Receive a strew of weeping verse | |
| From thy griev'd friend, whom thou might'st see | 5 |
| Quite melted into tears for thee. | |
| |
| Dear loss! since thy untimely fate | |
| My task hath been to meditate | |
| On thee, on thee: thou art the book, | |
| The library whereon I look | 10 |
| Though almost blind. For thee (lov'd clay) | |
| I languish out not live the day, | |
| Using no other exercise | |
| But what I practise with mine eyes: | |
| By which wet glasses I find out | 15 |
| How lazily time creeps about | |
| To one that mourns: this, onely this | |
| My exercise and bus'ness is: | |
| So I compute the weary houres | |
| With sighs dissolved into showres. | 20 |
| |
| Nor wonder if my time go thus | |
| Backward and most preposterous; | |
| Thou hast benighted me, thy set | |
| This Eve of blackness did beget, | |
| Who was't my day, (though overcast | 25 |
| Before thou had'st thy Noon-tide past) | |
| And I remember must in tears, | |
| Thou scarce had'st seen so many years | |
| As Day tells houres. By thy cleer Sun | |
| My love and fortune first did run; | 30 |
| But thou wilt never more appear | |
| Folded within my Hemisphear, | |
| Since both thy light and motion | |
| Like a fled Star is fall'n and gon, | |
| And twixt me and my soules dear wish | 35 |
| The earth now interposed is, | |
| Which such a strange eclipse doth make | |
| As ne're was read in Almanake. | |
| |
| I could allow thee for a time | |
| To darken me and my sad Clime, | 40 |
| Were it a month, a year, or ten, | |
| I would thy exile live till then; | |
| And all that space my mirth adjourn, | |
| So thou wouldst promise to return; | |
| And putting off thy ashy shrowd | 45 |
| At length disperse this sorrows cloud. | |
| |
| But woe is me! the longest date | |
| Too narrow is to calculate | |
| These empty hopes: never shall I | |
| Be so much blest as to descry | 50 |
| A glimpse of thee, till that day come | |
| Which shall the earth to cinders doome, | |
| And a fierce Feaver must calcine | |
| The body of this world like thine, | |
| (My Little World!) that fit of fire | 55 |
| Once off, our bodies shall aspire | |
| To our soules bliss: then we shall rise, | |
| And view our selves with cleerer eyes | |
| In that calm Region, where no night | |
| Can hide us from each others sight. | 60 |
| |
| Mean time, thou hast her earth: much good | |
| May my harm do thee. Since it stood | |
| With Heavens will I might not call | |
| Her longer mine, I give thee all | |
| My short-liv'd right and interest | 65 |
| In her, whom living I lov'd best: | |
| With a most free and bounteous grief, | |
| I give thee what I could not keep. | |
| Be kind to her, and prethee look | |
| Thou write into thy Dooms-day book | 70 |
| Each parcell of this Rarity | |
| Which in thy Casket shrin'd doth ly: | |
| See that thou make thy reck'ning streight, | |
| And yield her back again by weight; | |
| For thou must audit on thy trust | 75 |
| Each graine and atome of this dust, | |
| As thou wilt answer Him that lent, | |
| Not gave thee my dear Monument. | |
| |
| So close the ground, and 'bout her shade | |
| Black curtains draw, my Bride is laid. | 80 |
| |
| Sleep on my Love in thy cold bed | |
| Never to be disquieted! | |
| My last good night! Thou wilt not wake | |
| Till I thy fate shall overtake: | |
| Till age, or grief, or sickness, must | 85 |
| Marry my body to that dust | |
| It so much loves; and fill the room | |
| My heart keeps empty in thy Tomb. | |
| Stay for me there; I will not faile | |
| To meet thee in that hollow Vale. | 90 |
| And think not much of my delay; | |
| I am already on the way, | |
| And follow thee with all the speed | |
| Desire can make, or sorrows breed. | |
| Each minute is a short degree, | 95 |
| And ev'ry houre a step towards thee. | |
| At night when I betake to rest, | |
| Next morn I rise neerer my West | |
| Of life, almost by eight houres saile, | |
| Then when sleep breath'd his drowsie gale. | 100 |
| |
| Thus from the Sun my Bottom stears, | |
| And my dayes Compass downward bears: | |
| Nor labour I to stemme the tide | |
| Through which to Thee I swiftly glide. | |
| |
| 'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield, | 105 |
| Thou like the Vann first took'st the field, | |
| And gotten hast the victory | |
| In thus adventuring to dy | |
| Before me, whose more years might crave | |
| A just precedence in the grave. | 110 |
| But heark! My Pulse like a soft Drum | |
| Beats my approach, tells Thee I come; | |
| And slow howere my marches be, | |
| I shall at last sit down by Thee. | |
| |
| The thought of this bids me go on, | 115 |
| And wait my dissolution | |
| With hope and comfort. Dear (forgive | |
| The crime) I am content to live | |
| Divided, with but half a heart, | |
| Till we shall meet and never part. | 120 |
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