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AN

EPITAPH

ON THE

MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER.

THIS rich marble doth inter
The honour'd wife of Winchester,

A Viscount's daughter, an Earl's heir,

Besides what her virtues fair

Added to her noble birth,

More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,

After so short time of breath,

To house with darkness, and with death.
Yet had the number of her days

Been as complete as was her praise,

Nature and Fate had had no strife

In giving limit to her life.

Her high birth, and her graces sweet,

Quickly found a lover meet;

The virgin quire for her request

The God that sits at marriage feast;

He at their invoking came,

But with a scarce well-lighted flame; And in his garland, as he stood,

Ye might discern a cypress bud.

Once had the early matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son,
And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throes;

But, whether by mischance or blame,
Atropos for Lucina came ;
And with remorseless cruelty
Spoil'd at once both fruit and tree:
The hapless babe, before his birth,
Had burial, yet not laid in earth;
And the languish'd mother's womb
Was not long a living tomb.

So have I seen some tender slip,
Sav'd with care from winter's nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Pluck'd up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flower
New shot up from vernal shower;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Side-ways, as on a dying bed,
And those pearls of dew, she wears,
Prove to be presaging tears,

Which the sad morn had let fall
On her hastening funeral.

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ON THE

DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT,

DYING OF A COUGH.

I.

O FAIREST flower, no sooner blown but blasted, Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,

Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst out-lasted Bleak Winter's force that made thy blossom dry; For he, being amorous on that lovely dye

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss, But kill'd, alas! and then bewail'd his fatal bliss.

II.

For since grim Aquilo, his charioteer,
By boisterous rape the Athenian damsel got,
He thought it touch'd his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away the infamous blot

Of long-uncoupled bed and childless eld,

Which, 'mongst the wanton Gods, a foul reproach

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So mounting up in icy-pearled car,
Through middle empire of the freezing air
He wander'd long, till thee he spied from far;
There ended was his quest, there ceas'd his care:
Down he descended from his snow-soft chair,

But, all unwares, with his cold kind embrace Unhous'd thy virgin soul from her fair biding place.

IV.

Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For so Apollo, with unweeting hand,
Whilom did slay his dearly-loved mate,
Young Hyacinth, born on Eurotas' strand,
Young Hyacinth, the pride of Spartan land;
But then transform'd him to a purple flower :
Alack, that so to change thee Winter had no power!

V.

Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,

Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb, Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,

Hid from the world in a low-delved tomb;

Could Heaven for pity thee so strictly doom?

Oh no! for something in thy face did shine Above mortality, that show'd thou wast divine.

VI.

Resolve me then, oh Soul most surely blest,
(If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear;)
Tell me bright Spirit, where'er thou hoverest,
Whether above that high first-moving sphere,
Or in the Elysian fields, (if such there were ;)
Oh say me true, if thou wert mortal wight,
And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy
flight?

VII.

Wert thou some star which from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus by mischance didst fall;
Which careful Jove in Nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late Earth's sons besiege the wall

Of sheeny Heaven, and thou, some Goddess fled, Amongst us here below to hide thy nectar'd head?

VIII.

Or wert thou that just Maid, who once before
Forsook the hated earth, O tell me sooth,
And cam'st again to visit us once more?

Or wert thou Mercy, that sweet-smiling youth?

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