Faithlesse and fond Mortality, Who will ever credit thee? Fond and faithlesse thing! that thus, In our best hopes beguilest us. What a reckoning hast thou made, Of the hopes in him we laid? For Life by volumes lengthened, A Line or two, to speake him dead. For the Laurell in his verse, The sullen Cypresse o're his Herse. For so many hoped yeares Of fruit, so many fruitlesse teares. For a silver-crowned Head, A durty pillow in Death's Bed. For so deare, so deep a trust, Sad requitall, thus much dust! Now though the blow that snatcht him hence, Stopt the Mouth of Eloquence, Though shee be dumbe e're since his Death, Not us'd to speake but in his Breath, Leaving his death ungarnished Therefore, because hee is dead, Yet if at least shee not denyes, The sad language of our eyes, We are contented: for then this Language none more fluent is. Nothing speakes our Griefe so well As to speake Nothing, Come then tell Thy mind in Teares who e're Thou be, That ow'st a Name to misery. Eyes are vocall, Teares have Tongues, And there be words not made with lungs; Sententious showers, o let them fall, Their cadence is Rhetoricall. Here's a Theame will drinke th' expence, Of all thy watry Eloquence, Weepe then, onely be exprest Thus much, Hee's Dead, and weepe the rest. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BEFORE THE BIRTH OF ONE OF HER CHILDREN by ANNE BRADSTREET TO JOHN DONNE (2) by BEN JONSON HIS VICTORY by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE ON MR. CRUIKSHANK OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH by ROBERT BURNS AT ROMEO'S TOMB by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR |