Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire. 16491720418. On One who died discovering her Kindness
SOME vex their souls with jealous pain, | |
While others sigh for cold disdain: | |
Love’s various slaves we daily see— | |
Yet happy all compared with me! | |
Of all mankind I loved the best | 5 |
A nymph so far above the rest | |
That we outshined the Blest above; | |
In beauty she, as I in love. | |
And therefore They, who could not bear | |
To be outdone by mortals here, | 10 |
Among themselves have placed her now, | |
And left me wretched here below. | |
All other fate I could have borne, | |
And even endured her very scorn; | |
But oh! thus all at once to find | 15 |
That dread account—both dead and kind! | |
What heart can hold? If yet I live, | |
‘Tis but to show how much I grieve. |