Classic Poem

The Authors charge to his Satyres .

Ye luck-lesse Rymes, whom not vnkindly spight
Begot long since of Trueth and holy Rage,
Lye heere in wombe of Silence and still Night
Vntill the broyles of next vnquiet age:
That which is others graue, shalbe your wombe,
And that which beares you, your eternall Toombe.

Cease ere ye gin, and ere ye liue be dead,
And dye and liue ere euer ye be borne,
And be not bore, ere ye be buried,
Then after liue, sith you haue dy'd beforne,
When I am dead and rotten in the dust,
Then gin to liue, and leaue when others lust.

For when I die, shall Enuie die with mee
And lye deepe smothered with my Marble-stone,
Which while I liue cannot be done to dye,
Nor, if your life gin ere my life be done,
Will hardly yeeld t'await my mourning hearse.
But for my dead corps change my liuing verse.

What shall the ashes of my senselesse vrne,
Neede to regard the rauing world aboue.
Sith afterwards I neuer can returne
To feele the force of hatred or of loue?
Oh if my soule could see their Post-hume spight
Should it not ioy and triumph in the sight?

What euer eye shalt finde this hatefull scrole
After the date of my deare Exequies,
Ah pitty thou my playning Orphanes dole
That faine would see the sunne before it dies:
It dy'de before, now let it liue againe,
Then let it die, and bide some famous bane.