Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Francis Beaumont. 15861616234. On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey
MORTALITY, behold and fear! | |
What a change of flesh is here! | |
Think how many royal bones | |
Sleep within this heap of stones: | |
Here they lie had realms and lands, | 5 |
Who now want strength to stir their hands: | |
Where from their pulpits seal’d with dust | |
They preach, ‘In greatness is no trust.’ | |
Here ‘s an acre sown indeed | |
With the richest, royall’st seed | 10 |
That the earth did e’er suck in | |
Since the first man died for sin: | |
Here the bones of birth have cried— | |
‘Though gods they were, as men they died.’ | |
Here are sands, ignoble things, | 15 |
Dropt from the ruin’d sides of kings; | |
Here ‘s a world of pomp and state, | |
Buried in dust, once dead by fate. |