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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


DITTY by EDWARD HERBERT

First Line: CAN I THEN LIVE TO DRAW THAT BREATH
Last Line: EVEN DEATH CANNOT END.

CAN I then live to draw that breath
Which must bid farewell to thee?
Yet how should death not seize on me?
Since absence from the life I hold so dear must needs be death,
While I do feel in parting
Such a living dying,
As in this my most fatal hour
Grief such a life doth lend,
As, quick'ned by his power,
Even death cannot end.



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