that takes
    Desir’ed rest, as if her lovely sight
    Were closed with sweetest sleep, after the sprite
    Was gone.  If this be that fools call to die,
    Death seem’d in her exceeding fair to be.

    ANNA HUME.

[LINES 103 TO END.]

      And now closed in the last hour’s narrow span
    Of that so glorious and so brief career,
    Ere the dark pass so terrible to man! 
    And a fair troop of ladies gather’d there,
    Still of this earth, with grace and honour crown’d,
    To mark if ever Death remorseful were. 
    This gentle company thus throng’d around,
    In her contemplating the awful end
    All once must make, by law of nature bound;
    Each was a neighbour, each a sorrowing friend. 
    Then Death stretch’d forth his hand, in that dread hour,
    From her bright head a golden hair to rend,
    Thus culling of this earth the fairest flower;
    Nor hate impell’d the deed, but pride, to dare
    Assert o’er highest excellence his power. 
    What tearful lamentations fill the air
    The while those beauteous eyes alone are dry,
    Whose sway my burning thoughts and lays declare! 
    And while in grief dissolved all weep and sigh,
    She, in meek silence, joyous sits secure,
    Gathering already virtue’s guerdon high. 
    “Depart in peace, O mortal goddess pure!”
    They said; and such she was:  although it nought
    ’Gainst mightier Death avail’d, so stern—­so sure! 
    Alas for others! if a few nights wrought
    In her each change of suffering dust below! 
    Oh!  Hope, how false! how blind all human thought! 
    Whether in earth sank deep the dews of woe
    For the bright spirit that had pass’d away,
    Think, ye who listen! they who witness’d know. 
    ’Twas the first hour, of April the sixth day,
    That bound me, and, alas! now sets me free: 
    How Fortune doth her fickleness display! 
    None ever grieved for loss of liberty
    Or doom of death as I for freedom grieve,
    And life prolong’d, who only ask to die. 
    Due to the world it had been her to leave,
    And me, of earlier birth, to have laid low,
    Nor of its pride and boast the age bereave. 
    How great the grief it is not mine to show,
    Scarce dare I think, still less by numbers try,
    Or by vain speech to ease my weight of woe. 
    Virtue is dead, beauty and courtesy! 
    The sorrowing dames her honour’d couch around
    “For what are we reserved?” in anguish cry;
    “Where now in woman will all grace be found? 
    Who with her wise and gentle words be blest,
    And drink of her sweet song th’ angelic sound?”
    The spirit parting from that beauteous breast,
    In its meek virtues wrapt, and best prepared,
    Had with serenity the heavens imprest: 
    No power of darkness, with