Since she whom I lov’d hath paid her last debt

Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lieIn prison, in thy womb; and though He thereCan take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.Ere by the spheres time was created, thouWast…

Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly—beFreed by that drop, from being starved, hard or foul,And life by this death abled shall controlDeath, whom Thy death slew ; nor shall to meFear of first or last death bring misery,If in thy life-book my name thou enroll.Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,But made that…

From death, you numberless infinitiesOf souls, and to your scattered bodies go,All whom the flood did, and fire shall, overthrow,All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyesShall behold God, and never taste death’s woe.But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,For, if above all these my…

The sun it self, which makes time, as they pass,Is elder by a year now than it wasWhen thou and I first one another saw.All other things to their destruction draw,Only our love hath no decay ;This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday ;Running it never runs from us away,But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting…

A constant habit; that when I would notI change in vows, and in devotion.As humorous is my contritionAs my profane love, and as soon forgot:As riddlingly distempered, cold and hot,As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.I durst not view heaven yesterday; and todayIn prayers and flattering speeches I court God:Tomorrow I quake with true…