William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.
An Epitaph upon—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
E
’Tis to command her, but to name.
Courtship, which, living, she declined,
When dead, to offer were unkind.
Where never any could speak ill,
Who would officious praises spill?
Nor can the truest wit, or friend,
Without detracting, her commend;
To say, she lived a virgin chaste
In this loose age and all unlaced;
Nor was, when vice is so allowed,
Of virtue or ashamed or proud;
That her soul was on Heaven so bent,
No minute but it came and went;
That, ready her last debt to pay,
She summed her life up every day;
Modest as morn, as mid-day bright,
Gentle as evening, cool as night:
’Tis true; but all too weakly said;
’Twas more significant, she’s dead.