| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Epicedes and Obsequies upon the Death of Sundry Personages | | Elegy on the L[ord] C[hancellor] |
| | | SORROW, who to this house scarce knew the way, | |
| Is, O, heir of it, our all is his prey. 1 | |
| This strange chance claims strange wonder, and to us | |
| Nothing can be so strange as to weep thus. | |
| ’Tis well his life’s loud-speaking works deserve, | 5 |
| And give praise too, our cold tongues could not serve; | |
| ’Tis well he kept tears from our eyes before, | |
| That to fit this deep ill we might have store. | |
| O, if a sweet briar climb up by a tree, | |
| If to a paradise that transplanted be, | 10 |
| Or fell’d, and burnt for holy sacrifice, | |
| Yet that must wither which by it did rise, | |
| As we for him dead; though no family | |
| E’er rigg’d a soul for heaven’s discovery | |
| With whom more venturers more boldly dare | 15 |
| Venture their states, with him in joy to share, | |
| We lose what all friends loved, him; he gains now | |
| But life by death, which worst foes would allow, | |
| If he could have foes, in whose practice grew | |
| All virtues, whose name subtle schoolmen knew. | 20 |
| What ease can hope that we shall see him beget, | |
| When we must die first, and cannot die yet? | |
| His children are his pictures; O, they be | |
| Pictures of him dead, senseless, cold as he. | |
| Here needs no marble tomb, since he is gone, | 25 |
| He, and about him his, are turn’d to stone. | |
|
|
|
