Poetry Archives

How ill doth he deserve a lover’s name,
     Whose pale weak flame
     Cannot retain
His heat, in spite of absence or disdain;
But doth at once, like paper set on fire,
     Burn and expire;
True love can never change his seat,
Nor did her ever love, that could retreat.

That noble flame which my breast keeps alive
     Shall still survive
     When my soul’s fled;
Nor shall my love die when my body’s dead,
That shall wait on me to the lower shade,
     And never fade;
My very ashes in their urn
Shall, like a hallow’d lamp, forever burn.