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Title: An Epitaph Upon The Lady Elizabeth, Second Daughter To His Late Majesty
Author: Henry Vaughan [
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Youth, beauty, virtue, innocence,
Heav'n's royal and select expense,
With virgin-tears and sighs divine
Sit here the genii of this shrine;
Where now--thy fair soul wing'd away--
They guard the casket where she lay.
Thou hadst, ere thou the light couldst see,
Sorrows laid up and stor'd for thee;
Thou suck'dst in woes, and the breasts lent
Their milk to thee but to lament;
Thy portion here was grief, thy years
Distill'd no other rain but tears,
Tears without noise, but--understood--
As loud and shrill as any blood.
Thou seem'st a rosebud born in snow,
A flower of purpose sprung to bow
To headless tempests, and the rage
Of an incensed, stormy age.
Others, ere their afflictions grow,
Are tim'd and season'd for the blow,
But thine, as rheums the tend'rest part,
Fell on a young and harmless heart.
And yet, as balm-trees gently spend
Their tears for those that do them rend,
So mild and pious thou wert seen,
Though full of suff'rings; free from spleen,
Thou didst not murmur, nor revile,
But drank'st thy wormwood with a smile.
As envious eyes blast and infect,
And cause misfortunes by aspect,
So thy sad stars dispens'd to thee
No influx but calamity;
They view'd thee with eclipsed rays,
And but the back side of bright days.
* * * * *
These were the comforts she had here,
As by an unseen Hand 'tis clear,
Which now she reads, and, smiling, wears
A crown with Him who wipes off tears.
[The end]
Henry Vaughan's poem: Epitaph Upon The Lady Elizabeth, Second Daughter To His Late Majesty
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