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UPON MY FATHERS SUDDEN & DANGEROUS SICKNESS, by                    
First Line: Though sad this lesson be to me
Last Line: Deaths ev'n shall be the dawn of life to me.
Subject(s): Fathers; Grief; Mortality; Sickness; Sorrow; Sadness; Illness


THOUGH sad this Lesson be to Me,
Bycause I love the Book wherein 'tis writ;
Yet shall no Greif so potent be
As to forbid my Industrie to get
It thoroughly by heart: For why
Should I my Father loose, although He dy?

2

In mine own Blood, alas, I see
This Lesson painted; & I needs must read:
Neer, wondrous neer of kin to Me
His very Sickness is; nor could I plead
Against my Fate, although I were
Made his Pains Sonn, & his Distempers Heir.

3

What though by all the World before,
Whose Dust & Graves, Deaths Victory confess,
Our Times will take no Warning, nor
Expect what full against them flying is
On every Minutes Wings, but by
Their Lives, their Lives uncertainty deny?

4

I see no ground to fancy how
This Moment can secure the next to Me:
O no! Mortality, wch now
Knocks at my Fathers door, right neighbourlie
To mine gives Warning, & may heer
Enter, for aught I know, as soon as there.

5

And let it enter, JESU, when
Soe'r thy Pleasure is its way to ope;
But first, oh first, do Thou come in,
That by thy gracious Presence Thou mayst stopp
What Thou admittest; for by Thee
Deaths Ev'n shall be the Dawn of Life to Me.





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