Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

Soul and Body


POOR soul! the centre of my sinful earth,
Fool’d by 1 these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,	5
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?

Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;	10
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more;

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

Note 1. Malone: “starved by,” Steevens. The first two words are lost, and have been variously supplied. [back]