dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Book of Sorrow  »  John Dryden (1631–1700)

Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.

From ‘To the Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew’

John Dryden (1631–1700)

[See full text.]

NOW all those charms, that blooming grace,

The well-proportion’d shape and beauteous face,

Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;

In earth the much-lamented virgin lies!

Not wit nor piety could fate prevent;

Nor was the cruel Destiny content

To finish all the murder at a blow,

To sweep at once her life and beauty too;

But, like a harden’d felon, took a pride

To work more mischievously slow,

And plunder’d first, and then destroy’d.

O double sacrilege on things divine,

To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!