Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Sir John Suckling. 16091642325. A Doubt of Martyrdom
O FOR some honest lover’s ghost, | |
Some kind unbodied post | |
Sent from the shades below! | |
I strangely long to know | |
Whether the noble chaplets wear | 5 |
Those that their mistress’ scorn did bear | |
Or those that were used kindly. | |
For whatsoe’er they tell us here | |
To make those sufferings dear, | |
‘Twill there, I fear, be found | 10 |
That to the being crown’d | |
T’ have loved alone will not suffice, | |
Unless we also have been wise | |
And have our loves enjoy’d. | |
What posture can we think him in | 15 |
That, here unloved, again | |
Departs, and ‘s thither gone | |
Where each sits by his own? | |
Or how can that Elysium be | |
Where I my mistress still must see | 20 |
Circled in other’s arms? | |
For there the judges all are just, | |
And Sophonisba must | |
Be his whom she held dear, | |
Not his who loved her here. | 25 |
The sweet Philoclea, since she died, | |
Lies by her Pirocles his side, | |
Not by Amphialus. | |
Some bays, perchance, or myrtle bough | |
For difference crowns the brow | 30 |
Of those kind souls that were | |
The noble martyrs here: | |
And if that be the only odds | |
(As who can tell?), ye kinder gods, | |
Give me the woman here! | 35 |