Each minute is a short degree,
And every hour a step towards thee.
At night, when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my West
Of life, almost by eight hours sail
Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gale.
Thus from the Sun my Bottom steers,
And my day's compass downward bears:
Nor labour I to stem the tide,
Through which to thee I swiftly glide.
'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield, Thou, like the Van, first took'st the field, And gotten hast the victory,
In thus adventuring to die
Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave.
But hark! My pulse, like a soft drum,
Beats my approach, tells thee I come;
And slow howe'er my marches be,
I shall at last sit down by Thee.
The thought of this bids me go on,
And wait my dissolution
With hope and comfort. Dear, (forgive
The crime,) I am content to live
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet and never part.
Henry King, Bishop of Chichester,
1592-1669.
[This poem was first printed under the title of Elegeia, by F. G. Waldron, in "A Collection of Miscellaneous Poetry" (1802), from a MS. in his possession, dated 1625, the authorship being assigned to Donne. Dr Grosart reprinted it in his edition of Donne's Poems, and gave it the title of "Lament for his Wife." It is found, however, in Browne's autograph list of his own poems. See Mr Gordon Goodwin's "Poems of William Browne," ii. 348.]
Is Death so great a gamester, that he throws
Still at the fairest, and must I still lose?
Are we all but as tarriers first begun,
Made and together put to be undone?
Will all the rank of friends, in whom I trust,
Like Sodom's trees yield me no fruit but dust?
Must all I love, as careless sparks that fly
Out of a flint, but show their worth and die?
O, where do my for ever losses tend?
I could already by some buried friend
Count my unhappy years; and should the sun
Leave me in darkness, as her loss hath done,
By those few friends I have yet to entomb,
I might, I fear, account my years to come.
What need our canons then be so precise
In registers for our nativities?
They keep us but in bonds, and strike with fears
Rich parents, till their children be of years;
For should they lose and mourn, they might, as I,
Number their years by every elegy.
These books to sum our days might well have stood
In use with those that lived before the Flood,
When she indeed that forceth me to write,
Should have been born, had Nature done her right;
And at five hundred years been less decayed,
Than now at fifteen is the fairest maid.
But Nature had not her perfection then,
Or being loath for such long-living men,
To spend the treasure which she held most pure,
She gave them women apter to endure;
Or providently knowing there were more
Countries and islands which she was to store,
Nature was thrifty, and did think it well,
If for some one part each one did excel:
As this for her neat hand, that for her hair,
A third for her sweet eyes, a fourth was fair:
And 'tis approved by him, who could not draw
The Queen of Love till he a hundred saw.
Seldom all beauties met in one, till she,
All other lands else stored, came finally
To people our sweet Isle: and seeing now
Her substance infinite, she 'gan to bow
To lavishness in every nuptial bed,
And she her fairest was that now is dead;
Dead as a blossom forced from the tree,
And if a maiden, fair and good as she,
Tread on thy grave, O let her there profess
Herself for evermore an anchoress.
Let her be deathless! Let her still be young !
Without this means we have no verse nor tongue
To say how much I loved, or let us see
How great our loss was in the loss of thee.
Or let the purple violet grow there,
And feel no revolution of the year;
But full of dew with ever-drooping head,
Show how I live, since my best hopes are dead.
Dead! as the world to virtue. Murd'rers, thieves
Can have their pardons, or at least reprieves.
The sword of Justice hath been often won
By letters from an execution.
Yet vows nor prayers could not keep thee here,
Nor shall I see, the next returning year,
Thee with the roses spring and live again.
Thou'rt lost for ever as a drop of rain
Fall'n in a river! for as soon I may
Take up that drop, or meet the same at sea,
And know it there, as e'er redeem thee gone,
Or know thee in the grave, when I have one.
O! had that hollow vault, where thou dost lie,
An echo in it, my strong fantasy
Would draw me soon to think her words were thine, And I would hourly come, and to thy shrine
Talk as I often used to talk with thee,
And frame my words that thou might'st answer me
As when thou liv'd'st: I'd sigh, and say I love,
And thou should'st do so too, till we had moved
With our complaints to tears each marble cell
Of those dead neighbours which about thee dwell.
And when the holy father came to say
His orisons, I'd ask him if the day
Of miracles were past, or whether he
Knew any one whose faith and piety
Could raise the dead; but he would answer, none
Can bring thee back to life; though many one
Our cursed days afford, that dare to thrust
Their hands profane to raise the sacred dust
Of holy saints out of their beds of rest.
Abhorred days! O may there none molest
Thy quiet peace! but in thy ark remain
Untouched, as those the old one did contain,
Till he that can reward thy greatest worth,
Shall send the peaceful Dove to call thee forth.
William Browne, 1591-1643?
ELEGY ON MISTRESS BOULSTRED
["Poems by J. D., with Elegies on the Author's Death. 1633."]
Death I recant, and say, "Unsaid by me,
Whate'er hath slipped, that might diminish thee."
Spiritual treason, atheism 'tis to say
That any can thy summons disobey.
Th' earth's face is but thy table; there are set
Plants, cattle, men, dishes for death to eat.
In a rude hunger now he millions draws
Into his bloody, or plaguy, or starvéd jaws.
Now he will seem to spare, and doth more waste,
Eating the best first, well preserved to last.
Now wantonly he spoils, and eats us not,
But breaks off friends, and lets us piecemeal rot.
Nor will this earth serve him; he sinks the deep
Where harmless fish monastic silence keep;
Who-were Death dead—by roes of living sand
Might sponge that element, and make it land.
He rounds the air, and breaks the hymnic notes
In birds', heaven's choristers, organic throats;
Which, if they did not die, might seem to be
A tenth rank in the heavenly hierarchy.
O strong and long-lived death, how camest thou in?
And how without creation didst begin?
Thou hast, and shalt see dead, before thou diest,
All the four Monarchies, and Antichrist.
How could I think thee nothing, that see now
In all this All nothing else is, but thou?
Our births and lives, vices and virtues, be
Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee.
For we, to live, our bellows wear and breath,
Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death,
And though thou be'st, O mighty bird of prey,
So much reclaimed by GOD, that thou must lay
All that thou kill'st at His feet, yet doth He
Reserve but few, and leaves the most to thee.
And of those few now thou hast overthrown
One whom thy blow makes, not ours, nor thine own.
She was more storeys high; hopeless to come
To her soul, thou hast offered at her lower room.
Her soul and body was a king and court;
But thou hast both of captain missed and fort.
As houses fall not, though the kings remove,
Bodies of saints rest for their souls above.
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