Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint, Instead of dirges this complaint; And for sweet flowers to crown thy hearse, Receive a strew of weeping verse From thy grieved friend, whom thou might’st see 5 Quite melted into tears for thee. Dear loss! since thy untimely fate, My task hath been to meditate On thee, on thee: thou art the book, The library whereon I look, 10 Though almost blind. For thee, loved clay, I languish out, not live, the day, Using no other exercise But what I practise with mine eyes: By which wet glasses I find out 15 How lazily time creeps about To one that mourns; this, only this, My exercise and business is: So I compute the weary hours With sighs dissolvèd into showers. 20 Nor wonder if my time go thus Backward and most preposterous; Thou hast benighted me; thy set This eve of blackness did beget, Who wast my day (though overcast 25 Before thou hadst thy noontide past), And I remember must in tears, Thou scarce hadst seen so many years As day tells hours. By thy clear sun My love and fortune first did run; 30 But thou wilt never more appear Folded within my hemisphere, Since both thy light and motion, Like a fled star, is fall’n and gone, And ’twixt me and my soul’s dear wish 35 The earth now interposèd is, Which such a strange eclipse doth make As ne’er was read in almanack. I could allow thee for a time To darken me and my sad clime; 40 Were it a month, a year, or ten, I would thy exile live till then; And all that space my mirth adjourn. So thou wouldst promise to return; And putting off thy ashy shroud 45 At length disperse this sorrow’s cloud. But woe is me! the longest date Too narrow is to calculate These empty hopes: never shall I Be so much blest as to descry 50 A glimpse of thee, till that day come Which shall the earth to cinders doom, And a fierce fever must calcine The body of this world like thine, My little world! That fit of fire 55 Once off, our bodies shall aspire To our souls’ bliss: then we shall rise, And view ourselves with clearer eyes In that calm region, where no night Can hide us from each other’s sight. 60 Meantime, thou hast her, earth: much good May my harm do thee. Since it stood With Heaven’s will I might not call Her longer mine, I give thee all My short-lived right and interest 65 In her, whom living I loved best: