Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
William Cartwright. 16111643333. On a Virtuous Young Gentlewoman that died suddenly
SHE who to Heaven more Heaven doth annex, | |
Whose lowest thought was above all our sex, | |
Accounted nothing death but t’ be reprieved, | |
And died as free from sickness as she lived. | |
Others are dragg’d away, or must be driven, | 5 |
She only saw her time and stept to Heaven; | |
Where seraphims view all her glories o’er, | |
As one return’d that had been there before. | |
For while she did this lower world adorn, | |
Her body seem’d rather assumed than born; | 10 |
So rarified, advanced, so pure and whole, | |
That body might have been another’s soul; | |
And equally a miracle it were | |
That she could die, or that she could live here. |