Tixall Poetry/On the Death of My Deare Sister, C. A.
Appearance
On
the Death of My Deare Sister, C. A.
Where nature for a share of griefe do's call,Friendship for more, and merit most of all,What heart can swell so high, what time can beEver enough to satisfy all three? Nay, 'tis one cause of sorrow more, that theyChallenge a greater debt then I can pay;And my discharge thereof must only beDesire to doe it, and incapacity.Tho' I sometimes with lost indeavour frameThese arguments, t' invalidate their claime.I urge 'gainst nature the necessityOf death; she has paid a debt, life can but beA short forbearance of, and I shall sooneFinish the race she has before me run.Tho' friendship justly challenges much more,It gives resembling meanes to quit the score.Tho' by the satisfaction which I tookeIn each discourse of hers, in every looke,In seeing all that I could wish to see,"Where I did most desire that it should be,I may summe up how much I've lost in her,I must to mine her happiness prefer.For all enjoyments here but nothings proveTo what her merit gaines by this remove.Lastly, the want of her example, (whoScorn'd all delights of sense, and joined thereto A care t' inlarge her soule's capacityIn all perfection, with that constancyWherewith she crown'd her other vertues,) laysThe greatest claim to grief; yet that she praysMore powerfully now then she could here,My course to that blest port of bliss to steer.This obligation quits and leaves me alone,My sorrow having a just cause for none.But yet, in spite of all my reasons, mustMy heart and eyes pay tribute to her dust;And often number by my sighs and tearesThe pleasures I possest, ev'n from those yearesEre I soe much as what was pleasure knew,Till they to all this world could yield me grew.She had to see my love a knowing minde,And to returne it had a heart as kind.On some, perhaps, this and that sorrow lyes,But never one that did all els comprise;And such is mine, which do's encrease admitEven from the feare I yield too much to it.Nor hardly doe I my misfortune moreLament, than that excess of grief deplore: Since 'tis an injury to her, whose stateCannot my sorrow now participate.And since our joys and griefes here still were oneI doe confess it is my fault alone,That I that happy union now destroy,I hope we ever shall againe enjoy;When once my thoughts fixt in her glory haveOrecome the sad remembrance of her grave
The End.