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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  418. On One who died discovering her Kindness

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire. 1649–1720

418. 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.