• From the French by Henry Francis Cary
    Addressed to his deceased wife, who died in childbed at the age of twenty-two

    TO make my lady’s obsequies
      My love a minster wrought,
    And, in the chantry, service there
      Was sung by doleful thought;
    The tapers were of burning sighs,
      That light and odor gave:
    And sorrows, painted o’er with...

  • Were natural mortal lady

    Who had so little time

    To pack her trunk and order

    The great exchange of clime —


    How rapid, how momentous —

    What exigencies were —

    But nature will be ready

    And have an hour to spare.


    To make some trifle fairer

    That was too fair...