Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ELEGIE ON THE L.C, by JOHN DONNE



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ELEGIE ON THE L.C, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sorrow, who to this house scarce knew the way
Last Line: He, and about him, his, are turn'd to stone.
Variant Title(s): Love Elegies: Elegy 8. On Sir Thomas Egerton


Sorrow, who to this house scarce knew the way:
Is, Oh, heire of it, our All is his prey.
This strange change claimes strange wonder, and to us
Nothing can be so strange, as to weepe thus.
'Tis well his lifes loud speaking workes deserve,
And give praise too, our cold tongues could not serve:
'Tis well, hee kept teares from our eyes before,
That to fit this deepe ill, we might have store.
Oh, if a sweet briar, climbe up by'a tree,
If to a paradise that transplanted bee,
Or fell'd, and burnt for holy sacrifice,
Yet, that must wither, which by it did rise,
As we for him dead: though no familie
Ere rigg'd a soule for heavens discoverie
With whom more Venturers more boldly dare
Venture their states, with him in joy to share.
Wee lose what all friends lov'd, him; he gaines now
But life by death, which worst foes would allow,
If hee could have foes, in whose practise grew
All vertues, whose names subtile Schoolmen knew.
What ease, can hope that wee shall see'him, beget,
When wee must die first, and cannot dye yet?
His children are his pictures, Oh they bee
Pictures of him dead, senselesse, cold as he.
Here needs no marble Tombe, since hee is gone,
He, and about him, his, are turn'd to stone.





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