Wednesday, November 25, 2009

To a Mistress Dying


Your beauty, ripe and calm and fresh
...As eastern summers are,
Must now, forsaking time and flesh,
...Add light to some small star. . .

Lovers, whose priests all poets are,
...Think every mistress, when she dies,
Is changed at least into a star:
...And who dares doubt the poets wise?

Sir William Davenant (1606-68)