| |
| SINCE 1 thou art dead (Clifton), the world may see | |
| A certain end of flesh and bloud in thee; | |
| Till then a way was left for man to cry, | |
| Flesh may be made so pure it cannot dye: | |
| But now, thy unexpected death doth strike | 5 |
| With griefe the better and the worse alike; | |
| The good are sad they are not with you there, | |
| The bad have found they must not tarry here. | |
| Death, I confesse, ’tis just in thee to try | |
| Thy power on us, for thou thyself must dye. | 10 |
| Thou pay’st but wages, Death, yet I would know | |
| What strange delight thou tak’st to pay them so; | |
| When thou com’st face to face, thou strik’st us mute, | |
| And all our liberty is to dispute | |
| With thee behinde thy back, which I will use. | 15 |
| If thou had’st brav’ry in thee, thou wouldst chuse | |
| (Since thou art absolute, and canst controule | |
| All things beneath a reasonable soule,) | |
| Some look-for way of killing: if her day | |
| Had ended in a fire, a sword, or sea, | 20 |
| Or hadst thou come hid in a hundred yeares | |
| To make an end of all her hopes and feares, | |
| Or any other way direct to thee | |
| Which Nature might esteeme an enemy, | |
| Who would have chid thee? Now it shews thy hand | 25 |
| Desires to cosin where it might command: | |
| Thou art not prone to kill, but where th’ intent | |
| Of those that suffer is their nourishment; | |
| If thou canst steal into a dish and creep, | |
| When all is still as though into a sleep, | 30 |
| And cover thy dry body with a draught | |
| Whereby some innocent lady may be caught, | |
| And cheated of her life, then thou wilt come | |
| And stretch thyself upon her early tombe, | |
| And laugh, as pleas’d to shew thou canst devoure | 35 |
| Mortality as well by wit as power. | |
| I would thou hadst had eyes, or not a dart, | |
| That yet, at least, the cloathing of that heart | |
| Thou strook’st so spightfully might have appear’d | |
| To thee, and with reverence have been fear’d: | 40 |
| But since thou art so blind, receive from me | |
| Who ’twas as on whom thou wrought’st this tragedy. | |
| She was a lady who for publique fame | |
| Never (since she in thy protection came, | |
| Who sett’st all living tongues at large,) receiv’d | 45 |
| A blemish: with her beauty she deceiv’d | |
| No man when taken with it; they agree | |
| ’Twas Nature’s fault, when from ’em ’twas in thee | |
| As ever any did; yet hath thy hate | |
| Made her as little better in her state | 50 |
| As ever it did any being here, | |
| Shee liv’d with us as if she had been there. | |
| Such ladies thou canst kill no more; but so | |
| I give thee warning here to kill no moe: | |
| For if thou dost, my pen shall make the rest | 55 |
| Of those that live, especially the best, | |
| Whom thou most thirstest for, t’ abandon all | |
| Those fruitlesse things, which thou wouldst have us call | |
| Preservatives, keeping their diet so, | |
| As the long-living poore, their neighbours, do: | 60 |
| Then shall we have them long, and they at last | |
| Shall passe from thee to hear, but not so fast. | |
