Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Thomas Flatman. 16371688407. The Sad Day
O THE sad day! | |
When friends shall shake their heads, and say | |
Of miserable me— | |
‘Hark, how he groans! | |
Look, how he pants for breath! | 5 |
See how he struggles with the pangs of death!’ | |
When they shall say of these dear eyes— | |
‘How hollow, O how dim they be! | |
Mark how his breast doth rise and swell | |
Against his potent enemy!’ | 10 |
When some old friend shall step to my bedside, | |
Touch my chill face, and thence shall gently slide. | |
But—when his next companions say | |
‘How does he do? What hopes?’—shall turn away, | |
Answering only, with a lift-up hand— | 15 |
‘Who can his fate withstand?’ | |
Then shall a gasp or two do more | |
Than e’er my rhetoric could before: | |
Persuade the world to trouble me no more! |