Online Texts for Craig White's Literature Courses

• Not a critical or scholarly text but a reading text for a seminar

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

[1]    All things within this fading world hath end,
[2]    Adversity doth still our joys attend;
[3]    No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
[4]    But with death's parting blow are sure to meet.

[5]    The sentence past is most irrevocable,        [past = passed]
[6]    A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.
[7]    How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,      [my Dear = husband]
[8]    How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
[9]    We both are ignorant, yet love bids me        ["ignorant" . . . (of God's will)]
[10]   These farewell lines to recommend to thee,       [lines = this poem]
[11]   That when the knot's untied that made us one,    
[12]   I may seem thine, who in effect am none.

[13]   And if I see not half my days that's due,            [that's = that are]
[14]   What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
[15]   The many faults that well you know I have
[16]   Let be interred in my oblivious grave;              [have / grave = "sight rhyme"]
[17]   If any worth or virtue were in me,
[18]   Let that live freshly in thy memory
[19]   And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harms,
[20]   Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms,
[21]   And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
[22]   Look to my little babes, my dear remains.

[23]   And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me,
[24]   These O protect from stepdame's injury.             [stepdame = stepmother]
[25]   And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,
[26]   With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse;
[27]   And kiss this paper for thy dear love's sake, 
[28]   Who with salt tears this last farewell did take.