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Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  Anonymous

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Go, Nightly Cares

Anonymous

GO, nightly cares, the enemy to rest,

Forbear a while to vex my wearied sprite;

So long your weight hath lain upon my breast

That, lo! I live of life bereavèd quite:

O give me time to draw my wearied breath,

Or let me die as I desire the death.

Welcome, sweet Death! O life, no life, a hell!

Then thus and thus I bid the world farewell!

False world, farewell, the enemy to rest,

Now do thy worst, I do not weigh thy spite;

Free from thy cares I live forever blest,

Enjoying peace and heavenly true delight:

Delight, whom woes nor sorrows shall amate,

Nor fears or tears disturb her happy state:

And thus I leave thy hopes, thy joys untrue,

And thus, and thus, vain world, again adieu!