Consolation of Early Death



Sweet prince, the name of Death was never terrible
To him that knew to live; nor the loud torrent
Of all afflictions, singing as they swim,
A gall of heart, but to a guilty conscience:
Whilst we stand fair, though by a two-edged storm
We find untimely falls, like early roses,
Bent to the earth, we bear our native sweetness.
When we are little children,
And cry and fret for every toy comes 'cross us,
How sweetly do we shew, when sleep steals on us!
When we grow great, but our affection greater,
And struggle with this stubborn twin, born with us
And tug and pull, yet still we find a giant:
Had we not then the privilege to sleep
Our everlasting sleep, he would make us idiots.
The memory and monuments of good men
Are more than lives; and though their tombs want tongues
Yet have they eyes that daily sweat their losses,
And such a tear from stone no time can value.
To die both young and good are Nature's curses,
As the world says; ask Truth, they are bounteous blessings;
For then we reach at heaven in our full virtues,
And fix ourselves new stars, crown'd with our goodness.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:01 min read
120

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFGHGGIGBJKLMNOFPQG
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,072
Words 204
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 23

Beaumont and Fletcher

Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (1603–25). They became known as a team early in their association, so much so that their joined names were applied to the total canon of Fletcher, including his solo works and the plays he composed with various other collaborators including Philip Massinger and Nathan Field. The first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 contained 35 plays; 53 plays were included in the second folio in 1679. Other works bring the total plays in the canon to about 55. While scholars and critics will probably never render a unanimous verdict on the authorship of all these plays — especially given the difficulties of some of the individual cases — contemporary scholarship has arrived at a corpus of about 12 to 15 plays that are the work of both men. (See the individual pages on Beaumont and Fletcher for more details). more…

All Beaumont and Fletcher poems | Beaumont and Fletcher Books

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