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Home  »  The Poems of John Donne  »  Elegy

John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896.

Epicedes and Obsequies upon the Death of Sundry Personages

Elegy

MADAM,
That I might make your cabinet my tomb,

And for my fame, which I love next my soul,

Next to my soul provide the happiest room,

Admit to that place this last funeral scroll.

Others by wills give legacies, but I

Dying, of you do beg a legacy.

My fortune and my will this custom break,

When we are senseless grown to make stones speak,

Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou

In my grave’s inside see what thou art now,

Yet thou ’rt not yet so good; till us death lay

To ripe and mellow there, we’re stubborn clay.

Parents make us earth, and souls dignify

Us to be glass; here to grow gold we lie.

Whilst in our souls sin bred and pamper’d is,

Our souls become worm-eaten carcases.

THE END OF FUNERAL ELEGIES.