Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Ben Jonson. 15731637193. On Salathiel Pavy A child of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel Epitaphs: ii
WEEP with me, all you that read | |
This little story; | |
And know, for whom a tear you shed | |
Death’s self is sorry. | |
‘Twas a child that so did thrive | 5 |
In grace and feature, | |
As Heaven and Nature seem’d to strive | |
Which own’d the creature. | |
Years he number’d scarce thirteen | |
When Fates turn’d cruel, | 10 |
Yet three fill’d zodiacs had he been | |
The stage’s jewel; | |
And did act (what now we moan) | |
Old men so duly, | |
As sooth the Parcae thought him one, | 15 |
He play’d so truly. | |
So, by error, to his fate | |
They all consented; | |
But, viewing him since, alas, too late! | |
They have repented; | 20 |
And have sought, to give new birth, | |
In baths to steep him; | |
But, being so much too good for earth, | |
Heaven vows to keep him. |