Death gets 'twixt souls and bodies such a place
As sin insinuates 'twixt just men and grace;
Both work a separation, no divorce.
Her soul is gone to usher up her corse,
Which shall be almost another soul-for there
Bodies are purer than best souls are here.
Because in her, her virtues did outgo

Her years, would'st thou, O emulous death, do so,
And kill her young to thy loss? must the cost

Of beauty and wit, apt to do harm, be lost?

What though thou found'st her proof 'gainst sins of youth?

O, every age a diverse sin pursueth.

Thou should'st have stayed, and taken better hold.
Shortly, ambitious; covetous, when old,

She might have proved; and such devotion
Might once have strayed to superstition.
If all her virtues must have grown, yet might
Abundant virtue have bred a proud delight.
Had she persever'd just, there would have been
Some that would sin, misthinking she did sin.
Such as would call her friendship, love, and feign
To sociableness, a name profane,

Or sin by tempting, or, not daring that,

By wishing, though they never told her what.

Thus might'st thou have slain more souls had'st thou not crossed

Thyself, and to triumph, thine army lost.

Yet though these ways be lost, thou hast left one,

Which is, immoderate grief that she is gone.

But we may 'scape that sin, yet weep as much;
Our tears are due because we are not such.

Some tears, that knot of friends, her death must cost,
Because the chain is broke, but no link lost.

John Donne,

1573-1631.

ELEGY ON MISTRESS BOULSTRED

["Poems by J. D., with Elegies on the Author's Death. 1635."]

Death, be not proud, thy hand gave not this blow;
Sin was her captive, whence thy power doth flow;
The executioner of wrath thou art,

But to destroy the just is not thy part.

Thy coming, terror, anguish, grief denounces;
Her happy state, courage, ease, joy pronounces.
From out the crystal palace of her breast,

The clearer soul was called to endless rest,

-Not by the thundering voice, wherewith GOD threats,
But as with crowned saints in heaven He treats-
And, waited on by angels, home was brought,
To joy that it through many dangers sought.

The key of mercy gently did unlock

The doors 'twixt heaven and it, when life did knock. Nor boast the fairest frame was made thy prey, Because to mortal eyes it did decay.

A better witness than thou art, assures,

That though dissolved, it yet a space endures;
No dram thereof shall want or loss sustain,

When her best soul inhabits it again.

Go then to people cursed before they were;
Their souls in triumph to thy conquest bear.
Glory not thou thyself in these hot tears

Which our face, not for her, but our harm wears;

The mourning livery given by grace, not thee,

Which wills our souls in these streams washed should be; And on our hearts, her memory's best tomb,

In this her epitaph doth write thy doom.

Blind were those eyes, saw not how bright did shine

Through flesh's misty veil those beams divine;

Deaf were the ears, not charmed with that sweet sound
Which did i' th' spirit's instructed voice abound;
Of flint the conscience, did not yield and melt,
At what in her last act it saw and felt.

Weep not, nor grudge then to have lost her sight,
Taught thus, our after stay's but a short night;
But by all souls not by corruption choked
Let in high raisèd notes that power be invoked,
Calm the rough seas by which she sails to rest
From sorrows here to a kingdom ever blest.
And teach this hymn of her with joy, and sing,
"The grave no conquest gets, Death hath no sting."

John Donne, 1573-1631.

ELEGY OVER A TOMB

[From "Occasional Verses of Edward Lord Herbert, Baron of Cherbury and Castle-Island. Deceased in August, 1648. London. Printed by T. R. for Thomas Dring. 1665."]

Must I then see, alas! eternal night

Sitting upon those fairest eyes,

And closing all those beams, which once did rise

So radiant and bright,

That light and heat in them to us did prove

Knowledge and Love?

Oh, if you did delight no more to stay
Upon this low and earthly stage,

But rather chose an endless heritage,

Tell us at least, we pray,

Where all the beauties that those ashes owed
Are now bestowed?

Doth the Sun now his light with yours renew?

Have Waves the curling of your hair?

Did you restore unto the Sky and Air

The red and white and blue?

Have you vouchsafed to flowers since your death,
That sweetest breath?

Had not Heaven's Lights else in their houses slept,
Or to some private life retired?

Must not the Sky and Air have else conspired
And in their Regions wept?

Must not each flower else the earth could breed
Have been a weed?

But thus enriched may we not yield some cause
Why they themselves lament no more,

That must have changèd course they held before,
And broke their proper Laws,

Had not your Beauties given their second birth
To Heaven and Earth?

Tell us, for Oracles must still ascend

For those that crave them at your tomb ;
Tell us, where are those Beauties now become,
And what they now intend;

Tell us, alas! that cannot tell our grief,

Or hope relief.

Lord Herbert of Cherbury,

1583-1648.

To the Immortal Memory of the

Fairest and Most Virtuous Lady, the

LADY PENELOPE CLIFTON

[From "Bosworth-field: with a Taste of the Variety of other poems, left by Sir John Beaumont, Baronet, deceased, set forth by his sonne, Sir John Beaumont, Baronet; and dedicated to the King's most Excellent Maiestie. 1629."] Her tongue hath ceased to speak, which might make dumb: All tongues might stay, all pens, all hands benumb: Yet I must write: O that it might have been While she had lived, and had my verses seen,

Before sad cries deaf'd my untunèd ears,

When verses flowed more easily than tears.

Ah why neglected I to write her praise,
And paint her virtues in those happy days!
Then my now trembling hand and dazzled eye,
Had seldom failed, having the pattern by

Or had it erred, or made some strokes amiss,
-For who can portray Virtue as it is ?—

Art might with Nature have maintained her strife,
By curious lines to imitate true life.

But now those pictures want their lively grace,
As after death none can well draw the face:
We let our friends pass idly, like our time,

Till they be gone, and then we see our crime,
And think what worth in them might have been known,
What duties done, and what affection shown:
Untimely knowledge, which so dear doth cost,
And then begins when the thing known is lost;
Yet this cold love, this envy, this neglect,
Proclaims us modest, while our due respect
To goodness is restrained by servile fear,
Lest to the world it flattery should appear:
As if the present hours deserved no praise,
But ages passed, whose knowledge only stays
On that weak prop which memory sustains,
Should be the proper subject of our strains:
Or as if foolish men ashamed to sing
Of violets and roses in the Spring,

Should tarry till the flowers were blown away,
And till the Muses' life and heat decay;
Then is the fury slaked, the vigour fled,

As here in mine, since it with her was dead:
Which still may sparkle, but shall flame no more,
Because no time shall her to us restore :

Yet may these sparks, thus kindled with her fame,
Shine brighter and live longer than some flame.
Here expectation urgeth me to tell
Her high perfections, which the world knew well.
But they are far beyond my skill to unfold:
They were poor virtues if they might be told.