Classic Poem

In happy time the wished fair is come,
To fit thy lute with strings of ev'ry kind:
Great pity 'tis so sweet a lute be dumb,
That so can please the ear and ease the mind;
Go, take thy choice, and choose the very best,
And use them so that head and heart find rest.

Rest thou in joy, and let me wail alone;
My pleasant days have ta'en their last farewell:
My heart-strings sorrow struck so long with moan,
That at the last they all in pieces fell,
And now they lie in pieces broke so small,
That scarce they serve to make me frets withal.

And yet they serve and bind my heart so straight,
That frets, indeed, they serve to fret it out:
No force for that, in hope thereof I wait,
That death may rid me both of hope and doubt.
But death, alas! draws backward all too long,
And I each day feel new increase of wrong.