Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/328

 HENRY KING

288 Exequy on his Wife

ACCEPT, thou shrine of my dead saint, Instead of dirges this complaint, And for sweet flowers to crown thy hcrse Receive a strew of weeping verse From thy grieved friend, whom thou might'st see Quite melted into tears for thee.

Dear loss' since thy untimely fate, My task hath been to meditate On thee, on thee' Thou art the book, The library whereon I look, Tho' almost blind. For thee, loved clay, I languish out, not live, the day. . . . Thou hast benighted me, thy set This eve of blackness did beget, Who wast my day (tho 5 oveicast Before thou hadst thy noontide past). And I remember must in tears Thou scarce hadst seen so many years As day tells hours. By thy clear sun My love and fortune first did run, But thou wilt never more appear Folded within my hemisphere, Since both thy light and motion, Like a fled star, is fall'n and gone, And 'twixt me and my soul's dear wish The earth now interposed is. ...

I could allow thee for a time To darken me and my sad clime; Were it a month, a year, or ten, I would thy exile live till then,

�� �