Mrs. Mary Neudham

As

S sinn makes gross the soule and thickens it
To fleshly dulness, so the spotless white
Of Virgin pureness made thy flesh as cleere
As other soules: thou could'st not tarry heere
All soule in both parts; and what could it bee
The Resurrection could bestow on thee,
Allready glorious? thine Innocence.

(Thy better shroude) sent thee as pure from hence
As saints shall rise: but Hee whose bounty may
Enlighten the greate sunn with double day,
And make it more outshine itselfe than now
It can the moone, shall crowne thy varnish'd brow
With light above the sunn: when thou shalt bee
No lower in thy place than majesty:

Crown'd with a Virgin's wreath, outshining there
The Saints as much as thou did'st mortals heere.
Bee this thy hope; and whilst thy ashes ly

Asleepe in death, dreame of Eternity.

William Strode

Lady Mary Villiers

HE Lady Mary Villiers lies

THE

Under this stone: with weeping eyes

The parents that first gave her birth,
And their sad friends, laid her in earth.

If any of them, Reader, were
Known unto thee, shed a tear;
Or if thyself possess a gem
As dear to thee as this to them,

Though a stranger to this place,
Bewail in theirs thine own hard case,
For thou, perhaps, at thy return

Mayst find thy darling in an urn.

Thomas Carew

Anne Walton

ERE lieth buried as much as could die of Anne, the

HER Wife of Izaak Walton, a woman of remarkable pru

dence, and of a primitive piety; her great and general knowledge being adorned with such true humility, and chastened with so much Christian meekness, as made her worthy of a more memorable monument.

She died (alas, that she is dead!) the 17th of April, 1662, aged 53.

Require at least an age in one to meet.

In her they met; but long they could not stay,
'Twas gold too fine to mix without allay.
Heaven's image was in her so well exprest,
Her very sight upbraided all the rest;
Too justly ravish'd from an age like this,
Now she is gone, the world is of a piece.

John Dryden

Mrs. Corbet

[ERE rests a woman, good without pretence,

HER

Bless'd with plain reason, and with sober sense :

No conquests she but o'er herself desir'd,

No arts essay'd but not to be admir'd.

Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,
Convinc'd that virtue only is her own.

So unaffected, so compos'd a mind,

So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refin'd;
Heav'n, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd;
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.

Ternissa

A. Pope

"ERNISSA! you are fled!

TE

I say not to the dead,

But to the happy ones who are below :

For, surely, surely, where

Your voice and graces are,

Nothing of death can any feel or know.

Girls who delight to dwell

Where grows most asphodel,

Gather to their calm breasts each word you speak:

The wild Persephone

Places you on her knee

And your cool palm smoothes down stern Pluto's cheek.

W. S. Landor

Rose Aylmer

AH

H! what avails the sceptred race,
Ah! what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!

Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,

A night of memories and of sighs

I consecrate to thee.

W. S. Landor

Hester

THEN maidens such as Hester die

WHEN

Their place ye may not well supply,

Though ye among a thousand try

With vain endeavour.

A month or more hath she been dead,
Yet cannot I by force be led

To think upon the wormy bed
And her together.

A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate

Of pride and joy no common rate
That flush'd her spirit.

I know not by what name beside
I shall it call:- if 'twas not pride,

It was a joy to that allied,

She did inherit.

Her parents held the Quaker rule,
Which doth the human feeling cool;
But she was train'd in Nature's school,
Nature had blest her.

A waking eye, a prying mind;

A heart that stirs, is hard to bind;
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.

My sprightly neighbour, gone before
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
Some summer morning,

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet forewarning?

Charles Lamb

Under the Violets

HER

hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulses come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light:-
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.

But not beneath a graven stone,
To plead for tears with alien eyes ;
A slender cross of wood alone
Shall say, that here a maiden lies,
In peace beneath the peaceful skies.