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Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  John Webster (c. 1580–1634)

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

The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi

John Webster (c. 1580–1634)

HARK! Now everything is still,

The screech-owl and the whistler shrill,

Call upon our dame aloud,

And bid her quickly don her shroud!

Much you had of land and rent;

Your length in clay’s now competent:

A long war disturb’d your mind;

Here your perfect peace is sign’d.

Of what is’t fools make such vain keeping?

Sin their conception, their birth weeping,

Their life a general mist of error,

Their death a hideous storm of terror.

Strew your hair with powders sweet,

Don clean linen, bathe your feet,

And—the foul fiend more to check—

A crucifix let bless your neck:

’Tis now full tide ’tween night and day;

End your groan and come away.