EPITAPH ON ONE DROWNED IN THE SNOW by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643)

WITHIN a fleece of silent waters drown'd,
Before I met with death a grave I found;
That which exil'd my life from her sweet home,
For grief straight froze itself into a tomb.
One only element my fate thought meet
To be my death, grave, tomb, and winding-sheet;
Phœbus himself my epitaph had writ;
But blotting many, ere he thought one fit,
He wrote until my tomb and grave were gone,
And 'twas an epitaph, that I had none;
For every man that pass'd along the way
Without a sculpture read that there I lay.
Here now, the second time, entomb'd I lie,
And thus much have the best of destiny:
Corruption, from which only one was free,
Devour'd my grave, but did not feed on me,
My first grave took me from the race of men;
My last shall give me back to life agen.

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