Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON HIS DEATH by WILLIAM HABINGTON

First Line: TELL ME, O GREAT ALL-KNOWING GOD
Last Line: I SHALL FORGIVE THE TRESPASSE OF MY HEIRE.
Subject(s): DEATH; DEAD, THE;
TELL me, O great all-knowing God!
What period
Hast thou unto my dayes assign'd?
Like some old leaflesse tree shall I
Wither away: or violently
Fall by the axe, by lightning or the wind?

Heere, where I first drew vital breath
Shall I meete death?
And find in the same vault a roome
Where my fore-fathers' ashes sleepe?
Or shall I die, where none shall weepe
My timelesse fate, and my cold earth intombe?

Shall I 'gainst the swift Parthians fight
And in their flight
Receive my death? Or shall I see
That envied peace, in which we are
Triumphant yet, disturb'd by warre;
And perish by th'invading enemie?

Astrologers, who calculate
Uncertaine fate
Affirme my scheme doth not presage
Any abridgement of my dayes:
And the phisitian gravely sayes,
I may enjoy a reverent length of age.

But they are jugglers, and by flight
Of art the sight
Of faith delude: and in their schoole
They onely practise how to make
A mistery of each mistake,
And teach strange words, credulity to fool.

For thou who first didst motion give,
Whereby things live
And Time hath being! to conceale
Future events didst thinke it fit
To checke th'ambition of our wit,
And keepe in awe the curious search of zeale.

Therefore I so prepar'd still be,
My God for Thee:
Oth' sudden on my spirits may
Some killing Apoplexie seize,
Or let me by a dull disease
Or weakened by a feeble age decay.

And so I in thy favour die,
No memorie
For me a well-wrought tombe prepare,
For if my soule be 'mong the blest
Though my poore ashes want a chest,
I shall forgive the trespasse of my heire.



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