William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.
SleepThomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (15361608)
B
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath:
Small keep took he, whom Fortune frownèd on,
Or whom she lifted up into the throne
Of high renown: but as a living death,
So, dead live, of life he drew the breath.
The travail’s ease, the still night’s fear was he,
And of our life on earth the better part:
Reaver of sight, and yet in whom we see
Things oft that tide, and oft that never be:
Without respect, esteeming equally
King Crœsus’ pomp, and Irus’ poverty.