|
| Which when I saw that a strict grave could do, |
| I saw not why verse might not do so too. |
| Verse hath a middle nature, Heaven keeps Souls, |
| The Grave keeps bodies, Verse the Fame enrouls. |
|
| A Funeral Elegy. |
|
| 'Tis loss to trust a Tomb with such a guest, |
| Or to confine her in a marble chest, |
| Alas, what's Marble, Jeat, or Porphyrie, |
| Pris'd with the Chrysolite of either eye, |
| Or with those Pearls, and Rubies, which she was? |
| Joyn the two Indies in one Tomb, 'tis glass; |
| And so is all to her materials, |
| Though every inch were ten Escurials; |
| Yet she's demolish'd: can we keep her then |
| In works of hands, or of the wits of men? |
| Can these memorials, rags of paper, give |
| Life to that name, by which name they must live? |
| Sickly, alas, short liv'd, Abortive be |
| Those carcass verses, whose soul is not she; |
| And can she, who no longer would be she, |
| (Being such a Tabernacle) stoop to be |
| In paper wrapt; or when she would not lie |
| In such an house, dwell in an Elegy? |
| But 'tis no matter; we may well allow |
| Verse to live so long as the world will now, |
| For her death wounded it. The world contains |
| Princes for arms, and Counsellors for braines, |
| Lawyers for tongues, Divines for hearts, and more, |
| The rich for stomacks, and for backs the poor;
|
[CW: The] |