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ELEGY VII. GOE, glorious saint! I knew ’twas not a shrine | |
| Of flesh could lodge so pure a soule as thine; | |
| I saw it labour (in a holy scorne | |
| Of living dust and ashes) to be sworne | |
| A heavenly quirister: it sigh’d and groan’d | 5 |
| To be dissolv’d from mortall, and enthron’d | |
| Among his fellow-angels, there to sing | |
| Perpetuall anthems to his heavenly King: | |
| He was a stranger to his house of clay; | |
| Scarce own’d it, but that necessary stay | 10 |
| Miscall’d it his; and onely zeale did make | |
| Him love the building for the builder’s sake. | |
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ELEGY XIII. NO, no, he is not dead: the mouth of fame, | |
| Honor’s shrill herald, would preserve his name, | |
| And make it live in spight of death and dust, | 15 |
| Were there no other heaven, no other trust. | |
| He is not dead: the sacred nine deny | |
| The soule that merits fame should ever die: | |
| He lives, and when the latest breath of fame | |
| Shall want her trumpe, to glorify a name, | 20 |
| He shall survive, and these selfe-closed eyes | |
| That now lie slumbering in the dust shall rise, | |
| And, fill’d with endlesse glory, shall enjoy | |
| The perfect vision of eternall joy. | |
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ELEGY XX. VNCONSTANT earth! why doe not mortals cease | 25 |
| To build their hopes upon so short a lease? | |
| Vncertaine lease, whose terme but once begun, | |
| Tels never when it ends till it be done: | |
| We dote upon thy smiles, not knowing why, | |
| And whiles we but prepare to live, we die: | 30 |
| We spring like flowers for a daye’s delight, | |
| At noone we flourish, and we fade at night. | |
| We toyle for kingdomes, conquer crownes, and then | |
| We that were gods but now, now lesse than men. | |
| If wisdome, learning, knowledge, cannot dwell | 35 |
| Secure from change, vaine bubble earth, farewell! | |
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