| |
| DEATH I recant, and say, ‘Unsaid by me, | |
| Whate’er hath slipp’d, that might diminish thee.’ | |
| Spiritual treason, atheism ’tis to say | |
| That any can thy summons disobey. | |
| Th’ earth’s face is but thy table; there are set | 5 |
| Plants, cattle, men, dishes 1 for death to eat. | |
| In a rude hunger now he millions draws | |
| Into his bloody, or plaguy, or starved jaws. | |
| Now he will seem to spare, and doth more waste, | |
| Eating the best first, well preserved to last. | 10 |
| Now wantonly he spoils, and eats us not, | |
| But breaks off friends, and lets us piecemeal rot. | |
| Nor will this earth serve him; he sinks the deep | |
| Where harmless fish monastic silence keep; | |
| Who—were Death dead—by roes 2 of living sand | 15 |
| Might sponge that element, and make it land. | |
| He rounds the air, and breaks the hymnic notes | |
| In birds’, heaven’s choristers, organic throats; | |
| Which, if they did not die, might seem to be | |
| A tenth rank in the heavenly hierarchy. | 20 |
| O strong and long-lived death, how earnest thou in? | |
| And how without creation didst begin? | |
| Thou hast, and shalt see dead, before thou diest, | |
| All the four Monarchies, and Antichrist. | |
| How could I think thee nothing, that see now | 25 |
| In all this All nothing else is, but thou? | |
| Our births and lives, vices and virtues, be | |
| Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee. | |
| For we, to live, our bellows wear and breath, | |
| Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death. | 30 |
| And though thou be’st, O mighty bird of prey, | |
| So much reclaim’d by God, that thou must lay | |
| All that thou kill’st at His feet, yet doth He | |
| Reserve but few, and leaves the most to thee. 3 | |
| And of those few now thou hast overthrown | 35 |
| One whom thy blow makes, not ours, nor thine own. | |
| She was more storeys high; hopeless to come | |
| To her soul, thou hast offer’d at her lower room. | |
| Her soul and body was a king and court; | |
| But thou hast both of captain miss’d and fort. | 40 |
| As houses fall not, though the kings remove, | |
| Bodies of saints rest for their souls above. | |
| Death gets ’twixt souls and bodies such a place | |
| As sin insinuates ’twixt just men and grace; | |
| Both work a separation, no divorce. | 45 |
| Her soul is gone to usher up her corse, | |
| Which shall be almost another soul—for there | |
| Bodies are purer than best souls are here. | |
| Because in her, her virtues did outgo | |
| Her years, would’st thou, O emulous death, do so, | 50 |
| And kill her young to thy loss? must the cost | |
| Of beauty and wit, apt to do harm, be lost? | |
| What though thou found’st her proof ’gainst sins of youth? | |
| O, every age a diverse sin pursueth. | |
| Thou should’st have stayed, and taken better hold. | 55 |
| Shortly, ambitious; covetous, when old, | |
| She might have proved; and such devotion | |
| Might once have stray’d to superstition. | |
| If all her virtues must have grown, yet might | |
| Abundant virtue have bred a proud delight. | 60 |
| Had she persever’d just, there would have been | |
| Some that would sin, misthinking she did sin. | |
| Such as would call her friendship, love, and feign | |
| To sociableness, a name profane, | |
| Or sin by tempting, or, not daring that, | 65 |
| By wishing, though they never told her what. | |
| Thus mightst thou have slain more souls had’st thou not cross’d | |
| Thyself, and to triumph, thine army lost. | |
| Yet though these ways be lost, thou hast left one, | |
| Which is, immoderate grief that she is gone. | 70 |
| But we may ’scape that sin, yet weep as much; | |
| Our tears are due because we are not such. | |
| Some tears, that knot of friends, her death must cost, | |
| Because the chain is broke, but no link 4 lost. | |
