English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 146. A Passion of my Lord of Essex |
| | | Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1566–1601) |
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| HAPPY were he could finish forth his fate | |
| In some unhaunted desert, where, obscure | |
| From all society, from love and hate | |
| Of worldly folk; then might he sleep secure; | |
| Then wake again, and ever give God praise, | 5 |
| Content with hip, with haws, and bramble-berry; | |
| In contemplation passing all his days, | |
| And change of holy thoughts to make him merry; | |
| Who, when he dies, his tomb might be a bush, | |
| Where harmless Robin dwells with gentle thrush. | 10 |
| —Happy were he! | |
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