Here they lie had realms and lands, Who now want strength to stir their hands, With the richest, royallest seed That the earth did e'er suck in Since the first man died for sin: Here the bones of birth have cried "Though gods they were, as men they died!" Here are sands, ignoble things, Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings: Buried in dust, once dead by fate. ΙΟ 1653. Francis Beaumont. EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE UNDERNEATH this sable hearse Marble piles let no man raise 1641. Some kind woman, born as she, Shall turn statue, and become Both her mourner and her tomb. 12 Ben. Jonson. ON ELIZABETH L. H. WOULDST thou hear what Man can say Underneath this stone doth lie 1616. Fitter, where it died, to tell, Than that it lived at all. Farewell! Ben. Jonson. UPON THE DEATH OF SIR ALBERT MORTON'S WIFE He first deceased; she for a little tried To live without him, liked it not, and died. 1627. Sir Henry Wotton. 1640. EPITAPH On the Lady Mary Villiers THE Lady Mary Villiers lies Known unto thee, shed a tear; Thomas Carew. ΙΟ A NAMELESS EPITAPH Ask not my name, O friend! That Being only, which hath known each man From the beginning, can Remember each unto the end. 1867. Matthew Arnold. V ON SIR PHILIP SIDNEY SILENCE augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage, Stal'd are my thoughts, which loved and lost, the wonder of our age, Yet quickened now with fire, though dead with frost ere now, Enraged I write I know not what: dead quick, I know not how. Hard-hearted minds relent, and Rigor's tears abound, And Envy strangely rues his end, in whom no fault she found; Knowledge his light hath lost, Valor hath slain her knight: Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the world's delight. Place pensive wailes his fall, whose presence was her pride, Time crieth out, my ebb is come, his life was my spring-tide; 4 8 Fame mourns in that she lost, the ground of her reports, Each living wight laments his lack, and all in sundry sorts. He was woe worth that word-to each well thinking mind, A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shined, Declaring in his thoughts, his life, and that he writ, Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit. He only like himself, was second unto none, Where death-though life-we rue, and wrong, and all in vain do moan, 12 16 Their loss, not him wail they, that fill the world with cries, Death slew not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies. Now sink of sorrow I, who live, the more the wrong, Who wishing Death, whom death denies, whose thread is all too long, 20 Who tied to wretched life, who look for no relief, Must spend my ever-dying days in never-ending grief. Heart's ease and only I, like parallels run on, never meet in one, 24 |