to see the end
    Which all must taste; each neighbour, every friend
    Stood by, when grim Death with her hand took hold,
    And pull’d away one only hair of gold,
    Thus from the world this fairest flower is ta’en
    To make her shine more bright, not out of spleen
    How many moaning plaints, what store of cries
    Were utter’d there, when Fate shut those fair eyes
    For which so oft I sung; whose beauty burn’d
    My tortured heart so long; while others mourn’d,
    She pleased, and quiet did the fruit enjoy
    Of her blest life:  “Farewell,” without annoy,
    “True saint on earth,” said they; so might she be
    Esteem’d, but nothing bates Death’s cruelty. 
    What shall become of others, since so pure
    A body did such heats and colds endure,
    And changed so often in so little space? 
    Ah, worldly hopes, how blind you be, how base! 
    If since I bathe the ground with flowing tears
    For that mild soul, who sees it, witness bears;
    And thou who read’st mayst judge she fetter’d me
    The sixth of April, and did set me free
    On the same day and month.  Oh! how the way
    Of fortune is unsure; none hates the day
    Of slavery, or of death, so much as I
    Abhor the time which wrought my liberty,
    And my too lasting life; it had been just
    My greater age had first been turn’d to dust,
    And paid to time, and to the world, the debt
    I owed, then earth had kept her glorious state: 
    Now at what rate I should the sorrow prize
    I know not, nor have heart that can suffice
    The sad affliction to relate in verse
    Of these fair dames, that wept about her hearse;
    “Courtesy, Virtue, Beauty, all are lost;
    What shall become of us?  None else can boast
    Such high perfection; no more we shall
    Hear her wise words, nor the angelical
    Sweet music of her voice.”  While thus they cried,
    The parting spirit doth itself divide
    With every virtue from the noble breast,
    As some grave hermit seeks a lonely rest: 
    The heavens were clear, and all the ambient air
    Without a threatening cloud; no adversaire
    ’Durst once appear, or her calm mind affright;
    Death singly did herself conclude the fight;
    After, when fear, and the extremest plaint
    Were ceased, th’ attentive eyes of all were bent
    On that fair face, and by despair became
    Secure; she who was spent, not like a flame
    By force extinguish’d, but as lights decay,
    And undiscerned waste themselves away: 
    Thus went the soul in peace; so lamps are spent,
    As the oil fails which gave them nourishment;
    In sum, her countenance you still might know
    The same it was, not pale, but white as snow,
    Which on the tops of hills in gentle flakes
    Falls in a calm, or as a man