THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:

Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O! if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,—

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

And mock you with me after I am gone.

SELF ABASEMENT

lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should

love

After my death, dear Love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove ;

Unless you would devise some virtuous lie
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceaséd I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart :

O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you :-

For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

QUATUOR NOVISSIMA

THAT time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet bird sang:

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest :

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by :-

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere

long.

THE POET'S IMMORTALITY

UT be contented: when that fell arrest

BUT

Without all bail shall carry me away, My life hath in this line some interest, Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.

When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee:

The earth can have but earth, which is his due ;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me:

So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be rememberéd.

The worth of that is that which it contains, And that is this, and this with thee remains.

K

RICH AND POOR

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the

ground;

And for the peace of you I hold such strife

As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure ; Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure ;

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,

And by and by clean starvéd for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight

Save what is had or must from you be took.

Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.