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TO MY DEAR SISTER, MRS. S.: THE REASONS by WILLIAM HAMMOND

First Line: IS IT BECAUSE HE DIED, OR THAT HIS YEARS
Last Line: TO WISH HIM LONG LIFE, THEN, HAD BEEN A CURSE!
Subject(s): MOURNING; BEREAVEMENT;
Is it because he died, or that his years
Not many were, that causeth all these tears?
If for the first, you should have always wept,
Even in his life, from first acquaintance, kept
Sorrow awake, for that you know his fate
Prefixed had a necessary date.
How unadvisedly do you lament
Because things mortal are not permanent.
Or is't because he ere his aged snow,
Or autumn came, was ravish'd from the bough?
Ask but the sacred oracle, you there
Shall find, untimely deaths no windfall are.
The grand example, miracle of good,
(In virtue only old) slain in the bud,
Newly disclosing man. It were a shame
To wish, than that of his, a longer flame.
Who would not die before subdued by age?
That conquest oft Fortune pursues with rage;
Or sin in that advantage wounds him worse:
To wish him long life, then, had been a curse!



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