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EPITAPH OF DIONYSIA, by                    
First Line: Here doth dionysia lie
Last Line: Loves and graces like to thee
Subject(s): Epitaphs


HERE doth Dionysia lie:
She whose little wanton foot,
Tripping (ah, too carelessly!),
Touch'd this tomb, and fell into 't.

Trip no more shall she, nor fall.
And her trippings were so few!
Summers only eight in all
Had the sweet child wander'd through.

But, already, life's few suns
Love's strong seeds had ripen'd warm.
All her ways were winning ones;
All her cunning was to charm.

And the fancy, in the flower,
While the flesh was in the bud,
Childhood's dawning sex did dower
With warm gusts of womanhood.

Oh what joys by hope begun,
Oh what kisses kiss'd by thought,
What love-deeds by fancy done,
Death to endless dust hath wrought!

Had the fates been kind as thou,
Who, till now, was never cold,
Once Love's aptest scholar, now
Thou hadst been his teacher bold;

But, if buried seeds upthrow
Fruits and flowers; if flower and fruit
By their nature fitly show
What the seeds are, whence they shoot,

Dionysia, o'er this tomb,
Where thy buried beauties be,
From their dust shall spring and bloom
Loves and graces like to thee.





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