| |
| LANGUAGE, thou art too narrow and too weak | |
| To ease us now; great sorrows 1 cannot speak. | |
| If we could sigh out accents, and weep words, | |
| Grief wears, and lessens, that tears breath affords. | |
| Sad hearts, the less they seem, the more they are | 5 |
| —So guiltiest men stand mutest at the bar— | |
| Not that they know not, feel not their estate, | |
| But extreme sense hath made them desperate. | |
| Sorrow, to whom we owe all that we be, | |
| Tyrant, in the fifth and greatest monarchy, | 10 |
| Was ’t that she did possess all hearts before, | |
| Thou hast kill’d her, to make thy empire more? | |
| Knew’st thou some would, that knew her not, lament, | |
| As in a deluge perish th’ innocent? | |
| Was ’t not enough to have that palace won, | 15 |
| But thou must raze it too, that was undone? | |
| Hadst thou stay’d there, and look’d out at her eyes, | |
| All had adored thee, that now from thee flies; | |
| For they let out more light than they took in, | |
| They told not when, but did the day begin. | 20 |
| She was too sapphirine and clear for thee; 2 | |
| Clay, flint, and jet now thy fit dwellings be. | |
| Alas! she was too pure, but not too weak; | |
| Whoe’er saw crystal ordnance but would break? | |
| And if we be thy conquest, by her fall | 25 |
| Thou hast lost thy end; in her we perish all; 3 | |
| Or if we live, we live but to rebel, | |
| That know her better now, who knew 4 her well. | |
| If we should vapour out, and pine, and die, | |
| Since she first went, that were not misery. | 30 |
| She changed our world with hers; now she is gone, | |
| Mirth and prosperity is oppression; | |
| For of all moral virtues she was all, | |
| That 5 ethics speak of virtues cardinal. | |
| Her soul was paradise; the cherubin | 35 |
| Set to keep it was grace, that kept out sin. | |
| She had no more than let in death, for we | |
| All reap consumption from one fruitful tree. | |
| God took her hence, lest some of us should love | |
| Her, like that plant, Him and His laws above; | 40 |
| And when we tears, He mercy shed in this, | |
| To raise our minds to heaven, where now she is; | |
| Who if her virtues would have let her stay | |
| We had had a saint, have now a holiday. | |
| Her heart was that strange bush, where sacred fire, | 45 |
| Religion, did not consume, but inspire | |
| Such piety, so chaste use of God’s day, | |
| That what we turn to feast, she turn’d to pray; | |
| And did prefigure here, in devout taste, | |
| The rest of her high Sabbath, 6 which shall last. | 50 |
| Angels did hand her up, who next God dwell, | |
| For she was of that order whence most fell; | |
| Her body’s 7 left with us, lest some had said, | |
| She could not die, except they saw her dead; | |
| For from less virtue, and less beauteousness, | 55 |
| The Gentiles framed them gods and goddesses. | |
| The ravenous earth, that now woos her to be | |
| Earth too, will be a Lemnia, and the tree | |
| That wraps that crystal in a wooden tomb | |
| Shall be took up spruce, fill’d with diamond. | 60 |
| And we her sad glad friends all bear a part | |
| Of grief, for all would break a Stoic’s heart. | |
