Ben. Johnson's poems, elegies, paradoxes, and sonnets

The Extquy.

ACcept thou Shrine of my dead Saint, Insteed of Dirges this complaint; And for sweet flowres to crown thy hearse, Receive a strew of weeping verse From thy griev'd friend, whom thou might'st see 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 Though almost blind. For thee (lov'd 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 How lazily time creeps about To one that mourns: this, onely this My exercise and bus'ness is: So I compute the weary houres With sighs dissolved into showres.

Nor wonder if my time go thus Backward and most preposterous; Thou hast benighted me, thy set This Eve of blackness did beget, Who was't my day, (though overcast Before thou had'st thy Noon-tide past) And I remember must in tears, Thou scarce had'st seen so many years ••s Day tells houres. By thy cleer Sun ••y love and fortune first did run; ••ut thou wilt never more appear ••olded within my Hemisphear, ••ince both thy light and motion ••ike a fled Star is fall'n and gon,

And twixt me and my soules dear wish The earth now interposed is, Which such a strange eclipse doth make As ne're was read in Almanake.

I could allow thee for a time To darken me and my sad Clime, 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 shrowd At length disperse this sorrows 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 A glimpse of thee, till that day come Which shall the earth to cinders doome, And a fierce Feaver must calcine The body of this world like thine, (My Little World!) that fit of fire Once off, our bodies shall aspire

To our soules bliss: then we shall rise, And view our selves with cleerer eyes In that calm Region, where no night Can hide us from each others sight.

Mean time, thou hast her earth: much good May my harm do thee. Since it stood With Heavens will I might not call Her longer mine, I give thee all My short-liv'd right and interest In her, whom living I lov'd best: With a most free and bounteous grief, I give thee what I could not keep. Be kind to her, and prethee look Thou write into thy Dooms-day book Each parcell of this Rarity Which in thy Casket shrin'd doth ly: See that thou make thy reck'ning streight, And yield her back again by weight; For thou must audit on thy trust Each graine and atome 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.

Sleep on my Love in thy cold bed Never to be disquieted! My last good night! Thou wilt not wak•• Till I thy fate shall overtake: Till age, or grief, or sickness must 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 faile To meet thee in that hallow Vale. 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, And ev'ry houre a step towards thee. At night when I betake to rest, Next morn I rise neerer my West Of life, almost by eight houres saile, Then when sleep breath'd his drowsie gale.

Thus from the Sun my Bottom stears, And my dayes Compass downward bears: Nor labour I to stemme the tide Through which to Thee I swiftly glide.

'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield, Thou like the Vann first took'st the field, And gotten hast the victory In thus adventuring to dy Before me, whose more years might crave A just precedence in the grave. But heark! My Pulse like a soft Drum Beats my approch, tells Thee I come; And slow howere my marches be, I shall at last sit down by Thee.

The thought of this bids me go on, 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.