dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  Thomas Campion (1567–1620)

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

Sic Transit

Thomas Campion (1567–1620)

COME, cheerful day, part of my life to me;

For while thou view’st me with thy fading light,

Part of my life doth still depart with thee,

And I still onward haste to my last night:

Time’s fatal wings do ever forward fly,

So every day we live a day we die.

But, O ye nights, ordained for barren rest,

How are my days deprived of life in you,

When heavy sleep my soul hath dispossest,

By feignèd death life sweetly to renew!

Part of my life in that, you life deny:

So every day we live a day we die.