| |
| HE whom Heaven did call away | |
| Out of this hermitage of clay, | |
| Has left some reliques in this urn | |
| As a pledge of his return. | |
| Meanwhile the Muses do deplore | 5 |
| The loss of this their paramour; | |
| With whom he sported ere the day | |
| Budded forth its tender ray. | |
| And now Apollo leaves his lays, | |
| An put on cypress for his bays; | 10 |
| The sacred Sisters tune their quills | |
| Only to the blubbering rills, | |
| And while his doom they think upon, | |
| Make their own tears their Helicon; | |
| Leaving the two-topt mount divine | 15 |
| To turn votaries to his shrine. | |
| Think not, reader, me less blest, | |
| Sleeping in this narrow chest, | |
| Than if my ashes did lie hid | |
| Under some stately pyramid. | 20 |
| If a rich tomb makes happy, then | |
| That bee was happier far than men, | |
| Who, busy in the thymy wood, | |
| Was fettered by the golden flood, | |
| Which from the amber-weeping tree | 25 |
| Distilleth down so plenteously; | |
| For so this little wanton elf | |
| Most gloriously enshrined itself; | |
| A tomb whose beauty might compare | |
| With Cleopatra’s sepulchre. | 30 |
| In this little bed my dust | |
| Incurtained round I here intrust; | |
| While my more pure and nobler part | |
| Lies entomb’d in every heart. | |
| Then pass on gently, ye that mourn, | 35 |
| Touch not this mine hallowed urn; | |
| These ashes which do here remain | |
| A vital tincture still retain; | |
| A seminal form within the deeps | |
| Of this little chaos sleeps | 40 |
| The thread of life untwisted is | |
| Into its first consistencies; | |
| Infant nature cradled here | |
| In its principles appear; | |
| This plant thus calcined into dust | 45 |
| In its ashes rest it must, | |
| Until sweet Psyche shall inspire | |
| A softening and prolific fire, | |
| And in her fostering arms enfold | |
| This heavy and this earthly mould. | 50 |
| Then as I am I’ll be no more, | |
| But bloom and blossom as before, | |
| When this cold numbness shall retreat | |
| By a more than chymick heat. | |
| |
