Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UPON THE DEATH OF THE MOST DESIRED MR. HERRYS (2), by RICHARD CRASHAW


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

UPON THE DEATH OF THE MOST DESIRED MR. HERRYS (2), by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: If ever pitty were acquainted
Last Line: All hope of never dying, here lyes dead.
Subject(s): Herrys, William (d. 1631)


If ever Pitty were acquainted
With sterne Death, if e're he fainted,
Or forgot the cruell vigour,
Of an Adamantine rigour,
Here, o here we should have knowne it,
Here or no where hee'd have showne it.
For hee whose pretious memory,
Bathes in Teares of every eye:
Hee to whom our sorrow brings,
All the streames of all her springs:
Was so rich in Grace and Nature,
In all the gifts that blesse a Creature;
The fresh hopes of his lovely Youth,
Flourisht in so faire a grouth;
So sweet the Temple was, that shrin'd
The Sacred sweetnesse of his mind:
That could the Fates know to relent,
Could they know what mercy meant;
Or had ever learnt to beare,
The soft tincture of a Teare:
Teares would now have flow'd so deepe,
As might have taught Griefe how to weepe.
Now all their steely operation,
Would quite have lost the cruell fashion.
Sicknesse would have gladly been,
Sick himselfe to have sav'd him:
And his Feaver wish'd to prove
Burning, onely in his Love.
Him when wrath it selfe had seene,
Wrath its self had lost his spleene.
Grim Destruction here amaz'd,
In stead of striking would have gaz'd.
Even the Iron-pointed pen,
That notes the Tragicke Doomes of men
Wet with teares still'd from the eyes,
Of the flinty Destinyes;
Would have learn't a softer style,
And have been asham'd to spoyle
His lives sweet story, by the hast,
Of a cruell stop ill plac't.
In the darke volume of our fate,
Whence each leafe of Life hath date,
Where in sad particulars,
The totall summe of Man appeares,
And the short clause of mortall breath,
Bound in the period of death,
In all the Booke if any where
Such a tearme as this, spare here
Could have been found 'twould have been read,
Writ in white Letters o're his head:
Or close unto his name annext,
The faire glosse of a fairer Text.
In briefe, if any one were free,
Hee was that one, and onely he.
But he, alas! even hee is dead
And our hopes faire harvest spread
In the dust. Pitty now spend
All the teares that griefe can lend.
Sad mortality may hide,
In his ashes all her pride;
With this inscription o're his head
All hope of never dying, here lyes dead.





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