636.

637.

Robin Hood's Dirge

WEEP, weep, ye woodmen, wail,

Your hands with sorrow wring;
Your master Robin Hood lies dead,
Therefore sigh as you sing.

Here lies his primer and his beads,
His bent bow and his arrows keen,
His good sword and his holy cross:
Now cast on flowers fresh and green.

And, as they fall, shed tears and say
Well-a, well-a-day, well-a, well-a-day:
Thus cast ye flowers fresh and sing,
And on to Wakefield take your way.
A. Munday and H. Chettle

CALL

A Land Dirge

ALL for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,

To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,

And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm;

But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

J. Webster

638.

FULL

A Sea Dirge

`ULL fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them,

Ding-dong, bell!

W. Shakespeare

639. The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi

HARK! Now everything is still,

The screech-owl and the whistler shrill,

Call upon our dame aloud,

And bid her quickly don her shroud!

Your length in clay's now competent:
A long war disturb'd your mind;
Here your perfect peace is sign'd.

Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin their conception, their birth weeping,
Their life a general mist of error,
Their death a hideous storm of terror.

640.

Strew your hair with powders sweet,
Don clean linen, bathe your feet,

And the foul fiend more to check

A crucifix let bless your neck:

'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day;
End your groan and come away.

The Funeral

J. Webster

WHOEVER comes to shroud me, do not harm

Nor question much

That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm;
The mystery, the sign, you must not touch,
For 'tis my outward soul,

Viceroy to that which, unto heaven being gone,
Will leave this to control

And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall

Through every part,

Can tie those parts, and make me one of all;
Those hairs, which upward grow, and strength and art

Have from a better brain,

Can better do 't: except she meant that I

By this should know my pain,

As prisoners then are manacled, when they're condemn'd to die.

Whate'er she meant by it, bury it with me,

For since I am

Love's martyr, it might breed idolatry
If into other hands these reliques came.

As 'twas humility

T'afford to it all that a soul can do,

So 'tis some bravery

That, since

you would have none of me, I bury some of you.

641.

J. Donne

On the Tombs in Westminster

Abbey

MORTALITY, behold and fear!

What a change of flesh is here!

Think how many royal bones
Sleep within these heaps of stones!
Here they lie had realms and lands,
Who now want strength to stir their hands:
Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust
They preach, 'In greatness is no trust.'
Here's an acre sown indeed

With the richest royall'st seed

That the earth did e'er suck in
Since the first man died for sin:

Here the bones of birth have cried

'Though gods they were, as men they died!'

Here are sands, ignoble things,

Dropt from ruin'd sides of kings:

Here's a world of pomp and state

Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

F. Beaumont

642.

The Phoenix and the Turtle

L

ET the bird of loudest lay,

On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,

Augur of the fever's end,

To this troop come thou not near!

From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feathered king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender makest
With the breath thou giv'st and takest,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence;
Love and constancy is dead;

Phoenix and the turtle fled

In a mutual flame from hence.