Analysis of The Exequy

1     Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint,
2     Instead of dirges, this complaint;
3     And for sweet flow'rs to crown thy hearse,
4     From thy griev'd friend, whom thou might'st see
5     Quite melted into tears for thee.
6     Dear loss! since thy untimely fate
7     My task hath been to meditate
8     On thee, on thee; thou art the book,
9     The library whereon I look,
10   Though almost blind. For thee (lov'd clay)
11   I languish out, not live, the day,
12   Using no other exercise
13   But what I practise with mine eyes;
14   By which wet glasses I find out
15   How lazily time creeps about
16   To one that mourns; this, only this,
17   My exercise and bus'ness is.
18   So I compute the weary hours
19   With sighs dissolved into showers.

20       Nor wonder if my time go thus
21   Backward and most preposterous;
22   Thou hast benighted me; thy set
23   This eve of blackness did beget,
24   Who wast my day (though overcast
25   Before thou hadst thy noon-tide past)
26   And I remember must in tears,
27   Thou scarce hadst seen so many years
28   As day tells hours. By thy clear sun
29   My love and fortune first did run;
30   But thou wilt never more appear
31   Folded within my hemisphere,
32   Since both thy light and mot{"i}on
33   Like a fled star is fall'n and gone;
34   And 'twixt me and my soul's dear wish
35   An earth now interposed is,
36   Which such a strange eclipse doth make
37   As ne'er was read in almanac.

38       I could allow thee for a time
39   To darken me and my sad clime;
40   Were it a month, a year, or ten,
41   I would thy exile live till then,
42   And all that space my mirth adjourn,
43   So thou wouldst promise to return,
44   And putting off thy ashy shroud,
45   At length disperse this sorrow's cloud.

46       But woe is me! the longest date
47   Too narrow is to calculate
48   These empty hopes; never shall I
49   Be so much blest as to descry
50   A glimpse of thee, till that day come
51   Which shall the earth to cinders doom,
52   And a fierce fever must calcine
53   The body of this world like thine,
54   (My little world!). That fit of fire
55   Once off, our bodies shall aspire
56   To our souls' bliss; then we shall rise
57   And view ourselves with clearer eyes
58   In that calm region where no night
59   Can hide us from each other's sight.

60       Meantime, thou hast her, earth; much good
61   May my harm do thee. Since it stood
62   With heaven's will I might not call
63   Her longer mine, I give thee all
64   My short-liv'd right and interest
65   In her whom living I lov'd best;
66   With a most free and bounteous grief,
67   I give thee what I could not keep.
68   Be kind to her, and prithee look
69   Thou write into thy doomsday book
70   Each parcel of this rarity
71   Which in thy casket shrin'd doth lie.
72   See that thou make thy reck'ning straight,
73   And yield her back again by weight;
74   For thou must audit on thy trust
75   Each grain and atom of this dust,
76   As thou wilt answer Him that lent,
77   Not gave thee, my dear monument.

78       So close the ground, and 'bout her shade
79   Black curtains draw, my bride is laid.

80       Sleep on my love in thy cold bed
81   Never to be disquieted!
82   My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake
83   Till I thy fate shall overtake;
84   Till age, or grief, or sickness must
85   Marry my body to that dust
86   It so much loves, and fill the room
87   My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
88   Stay for me there, I will not fail
89   To meet thee in that hollow vale.
90   And think not much of my delay;
91   I am already on the way,
92   And follow thee with all the speed
93   Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
94   Each minute is a short degree,
95   And ev'ry hour a step towards thee.
96   At night when I betake to rest,
97   Next morn I rise nearer my west
98   Of life, almost by eight hours' sail,
99   Than when sleep breath'd his drowsy gale.

100       Thus from the sun my bottom steers,
101   And my day's compass downward bears;
102   Nor labour I to stem the tide
103   Through which to thee I swiftly glide.
104   'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield,
105   Thou like the van first took'st the field,
106   And gotten hath the victory
107   In thus adventuring to die
108   Before me, whose more years might crave
109   A just precedence in the grave.
110   But hark! my