StoryTitle("caps", "A Widow's Hymn") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How near me came the hand of Death, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "When at my side he struck my dear, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And took away the precious breath ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Which quicken'd my belovéd peer! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "How helpless am I thereby made!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "By day how grieved, by night how sad! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And now my life's delight is gone, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "—Alas! how am I left alone! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The voice which I did more esteem ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Than music in her sweetest key,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Those eyes which unto me did seem ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "More comfortable than the day; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Those now by me, as they have been, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Shall never more be heard or seen; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But what I once enjoy'd in them", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Shall seem hereafter as a dream. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Lord! keep me faithful to the trust ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Which my dear spouse reposed in me: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To him now dead preserve me just ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "In all that should performéd be!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "For though our being man and wife ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Extendeth only to this life, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yet neither life nor death should end ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The being of a faithful friend.", "") ?>
Poet("George Wither", "1588-1667") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>