| |
MY sweet companion and my gentle peer, | |
| Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here, | |
| Thy end for ever and my life to moan? | |
| O, thou hast left me all alone! | |
| Thy soul and body, when death’s agony | 5 |
| Besieged around thy noble heart, | |
| Did not with more reluctance part | |
| Than I, my dearest Friend, do part from thee. | |
| |
| My dearest Friend, would I had died for thee! | |
| Life and this world henceforth will tedious be: | 10 |
| Nor shall I know hereafter what to do | |
| If once my griefs prove tedious too. | |
| Silent and sad I walk about all day, | |
| As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by | |
| Where their hid treasures lie; | 15 |
| Alas! my treasure’s gone; why do I stay?… | |
| |
| Large was his soul: as large a soul as e’er | |
| Submitted to inform a body here; | |
| High as the place ’twas shortly in Heaven to have, | |
| But low and humble as his grave. | 20 |
| So high that all the virtues there did come, | |
| As to their chiefest seat | |
| Conspicuous and great; | |
| So low, that for me too it made a room…. | |
| |
| With as much zeal, devotion, piety, | 25 |
| He always lived, as other saints do die. | |
| Still with his soul severe account he kept, | |
| Weeping all debts out ere he slept. | |
| Then down in peace and innocence he lay, | |
| Like the Sun’s laborious light, | 30 |
| Which still in water sets at night, | |
| Unsullied with his journey of the day…. | |
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