CXXI Exequy on His Wife
Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint,
Instead of dirges this complaint;
And for sweet flowers to crown thy hearse,
Receive a strew of weeping verse
From thy grieved friend, whom thou might’st see 5
Quite melted into tears for thee.
Dear loss! since thy untimely fate,
My task hath been to meditate
On thee, on thee: thou art the book,
The library whereon I look, 10
Though almost blind. For thee, loved clay,
I languish out, not live, the day,
Using no other exercise
But what I practise with mine eyes:
By which wet glasses I find out 15
How lazily time creeps about
To one that mourns; this, only this,
My exercise and business is:
So I compute the weary hours
With sighs dissolvèd into showers. 20
Nor wonder if my time go thus
Backward and most preposterous;
Thou hast benighted me; thy set
This eve of blackness did beget,
Who wast my day (though overcast 25
Before thou hadst thy noontide past),
And I remember must in tears,
Thou scarce hadst seen so many years
As day tells hours. By thy clear sun
My love and fortune first did run; 30
But thou wilt never more appear
Folded within my hemisphere,
Since both thy light and motion,
Like a fled star, is fall’n and gone,
And ’twixt me and my soul’s dear wish 35
The earth now interposèd is,
Which such a strange eclipse doth make
As ne’er was read in almanack.
I could allow thee for a time
To darken me and my sad clime; 40
Were it a month, a year, or ten,
I would thy exile live till then;
And all that space my mirth adjourn.
So thou wouldst promise to return;
And putting off thy ashy shroud 45
At length disperse this sorrow’s cloud.
But woe is me! the longest date
Too narrow is to calculate
These empty hopes: never shall I
Be so much blest as to descry 50
A glimpse of thee, till that day come
Which shall the earth to cinders doom,
And a fierce fever must calcine
The body of this world like thine,
My little world! That fit of fire 55
Once off, our bodies shall aspire
To our souls’ bliss: then we shall rise,
And view ourselves with clearer eyes
In that calm region, where no night
Can hide us from each other’s sight. 60
Meantime, thou hast her, earth: much good
May my harm do thee. Since it stood
With Heaven’s will I might not call
Her longer mine, I give thee all
My short-lived right and interest 65
In her, whom living I loved best:
With a most free and bounteous grief,
I give thee what I could not keep.
Be kind to her, and prithee look
Thou write into thy Doomsday book 70
Each parcel of this rarity,
Which in thy casket shrined doth lie:
See that thou make thy reckoning straight,
And yield her back again by weight;
For thou must audit on thy trust 75
Each grain and atom of this dust,
As thou wilt answer him that lent,
Not gave, thee, my dear monument.
So close the ground, and ’bout her shade
Black curtains draw; my bride is laid. 80
Sleep on, my Love, in thy cold bed
Never to be disquieted!
My last good night! Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake:
Till age, or grief, or sickness must 85
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves; and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there; I will not fail
To meet thee in that hallow vale. 90
And think not much of my delay;
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree, 95
And every hour a step towards thee.
At night when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my west
Of life, almost by eight hours’ sail,
Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gale. 100
Thus from the sun my bottom steers,
And my day’s compass downward bears:
Nor labour I to stem the tide,
Through which to thee I swiftly glide.
’Tis true, with shame and grief I yield, 105
Thou, like the van, first took’st the field,
And gotten hast the victory
In thus adventuring to die
Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave. 110
But hark! my pulse, like a soft drum,
Beats my approach, tells thee I come;
And slow howe’er my marches be,
I shall at last sit down by thee.
The thought of this bids me go on, 115
And wait my dissolution
With hope and comfort. Dear (forgive
The crime) I am content to live
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet and never part. 120
Henry King.