William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.
An Epitaph on Salathiel PavyBen Jonson (15721637)
A Child of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel
W
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death’s self is sorry.
’Twas a child that so did thrive
In grace and feature,
As heaven and nature seemed to strive
Which own’d the creature.
Years he number’d scarce thirteen
When Fates turn’d cruel,
Yet three fill’d zodiacs had he been
The stage’s jewel;
And did act, (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcæ thought him one,
He played so truly.
So, by error to his fate,
They all consented;
But, viewing him since, alas too late!
They have repented;
And have sought, to give new birth,
In baths to steep him;
But, being so much too good for earth,
Heaven vows to keep him.