Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
George Wither. 1588–1667
239. A Widow’s Hymn
| HOW near me came the hand of Death, | |
| When at my side he struck my dear, | |
| And took away the precious breath | |
| Which quicken’d my belovèd peer! | |
| How helpless am I thereby made! | 5 |
| By day how grieved, by night how sad! | |
| And now my life’s delight is gone, | |
| —Alas! how am I left alone! | |
| |
| The voice which I did more esteem | |
| Than music in her sweetest key, | 10 |
| Those eyes which unto me did seem | |
| More comfortable than the day; | |
| Those now by me, as they have been, | |
| Shall never more be heard or seen; | |
| But what I once enjoy’d in them | 15 |
| Shall seem hereafter as a dream. | |
| |
| Lord! keep me faithful to the trust | |
| Which my dear spouse reposed in me: | |
| To him now dead preserve me just | |
| In all that should performèd be! | 20 |
| For though our being man and wife | |
| Extendeth only to this life, | |
| Yet neither life nor death should end | |
| The being of a faithful friend. | |
