StoryTitle("caps", "Exequy On His Wife") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Instead of dirges this complaint; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And for sweet flowers to crown thy herse ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Receive a strew of weeping verse ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From thy grieved friend, whom thou might'st see ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Quite melted into tears for thee. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Dear loss! since thy untimely fate, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My task hath been to meditate ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "On thee, on thee! Thou art the book, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The library whereon I look,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Tho' almost blind. For thee, loved clay, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I languish out, not live, the day. . . . ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou hast benighted me; thy set ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "This eve of blackness did beget, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Who wast my day (tho' overcast", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Before thou hadst thy noontide past): ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And I remember must in tears ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou scarce hadst seen so many years ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As day tells hours. By thy clear sun ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My love and fortune first did run; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But thou wilt never more appear ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Folded within my hemisphere, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Since both thy light and motion, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Like a fled star, is fall'n and gone, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And 'twixt me and my soul's dear wish", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The earth now interposéd is. . . . ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "I could allow thee for a time ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To darken me and my sad clime; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Were it a month, a year, or ten, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I would thy exile live till then, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And all that space my mirth adjourn— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So thou wouldst promise to return, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And putting off thy ashy shroud ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "At length disperse this sorrow's cloud. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "But woe is me! the longest date", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Too narrow is to calculate ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "These empty hopes: never shall I ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Be so much blest as to descry ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A glimpse of thee, till that day come ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Which shall the earth to cinders doom,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And a fierce fever must calcine ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The body of this world—like thine, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My little world! That fit of fire ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Once off, our bodies shall aspire ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To our souls' bliss: then we shall rise", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And view ourselves with clearer eyes ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In that calm region where no night ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Can hide us from each other's sight. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Meantime thou hast her, earth: much good ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "May my harm do thee! Since it stood", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With Heaven's will I might not call ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Her longer mine, I give thee all ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My short-lived right and interest ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In her whom living I loved best. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Be kind to her, and prithee look", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou write into thy Doomsday book ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Each parcel of this rarity ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Which in thy casket shrined doth lie, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As thou wilt answer Him that lent— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Not gave—thee my dear monument.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So close the ground, and 'bout her shade ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Black curtains draw: my bride is laid. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Sleep on, my Love, in thy cold bed ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Never to be disquieted! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till I thy fate shall overtake: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till age, or grief, or sickness must ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Marry my body to that dust ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It so much loves; and fill the room ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Stay for me there: I will not fail ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To meet thee in that hollow vale. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And think not much of my delay: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I am already on the way, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And follow thee with all the speed", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Desire can make, or sorrows breed. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Each minute is a short degree ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And every hour a step towards thee. . . . ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2SQ", "", "'Tis true—with shame and grief I yield— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou, like the van, first took'st the field;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And gotten hast the victory ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In thus adventuring to die ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Before me, whose more years might crave ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A just precedence in the grave. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But hark! my pulse, like a soft drum,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Beats my approach, tells thee I come; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And slow howe'er my marches be ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I shall at last sit down by thee. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The thought of this bids me go on ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And wait my dissolution", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With hope and comfort. Dear—forgive ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The crime—I am content to live ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Divided, with but half a heart, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till we shall meet and never part.", "") ?>
Poet("Henry King, Bishop of Chichester", "1592-1669") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>