Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/306

Rh woman in all the world, and the most ill-starred to have lost so precious a possession? Gracious God! why dost not kill me straight, that I may follow him presently to the tomb? Nay! I care not to live on after him; for what is left me in this world or can ever come to me, to give me solace? An it were not for these babes he hath left me in pledge, and that they do yet need some stay, verily I would kill myself this very minute. Cursed be the hour ever I was born! If only I might see his ghost, or behold him in a vision or dream, or by some magic art, how blessed should I be e'en now! Oh! sweetheart, sweet soul! can I in no way follow thee in death? Yea! I will follow thee, so soon as, free from all human hindrance, I may be alone and do myself to death. What could make my life worth living, now I have had so irreparable a loss? With thee alive I could have no other wish but to live; with thee dead, no wish but only to die! Well, well! is't not better for me to die now in thy love and favour and mine own good repute and satisfaction, than to drag on so sorrowful and unhappy a life, wherein is never a scrap of credit to be gotten? Great God! what ills and torments I endure by thine absence! what a sweet deliverance, an if I might but see thee soon again, what a crown of bliss! Alas! he was so handsome, he was so lovable! He was another Mars, another Adonis! and more than all, he was so kind, and loved me so true, and treated me so fondly! In one word, in losing him, I have lost all mine happiness."

Such and an infinity of the like words do our heart-broken widows indulge in after the death of their husbands. Some will make their moan in one way, others in another, but always something to the effect of what I have set down. Some do cry out on heaven, others curse this earth