Epitaph on Dyonisia.
Here doth Dyonisia lie.1
She, whose little wanton foot2
Tripping (ah ! too carelessly !)3
Toucht this tomb, and fell into ’t.4
Trip no more shall she, nor fall.5
And her trippings were so few !6
Summers only eight in all7
Had the sweet child wander’d through.8
But, already, life’s few suns9
Love’s strong seed had ripen’d warm.10
All her ways were winning ones :11
All her cunning was to charm.12
And the fancy, in the flower,13
While the flesh was in the bud14
Childhood’s dawning sex did dower15
With warm gusts of womanhood.16
O what joys by hope begun,17
O what kisses kist by thought,18
What love-deeds by fancy done,19
Death to deedless dust hath wrought20
Had the Fates been kind as thou,21
Who, till now, was never cold,22
Once Love’s aptest scholar, now23
Thou hadst been his teacher bold :24
But, if buried seeds upthrow25
Fruits and flowers ; if flower and fruit26
By their nature fitly show27
What the seeds are, whence they shoot,28
Dyonisia, o’er this tomb,29
Where thy buried beauties be,30
From their dust shall spring and bloom31
Loves and graces like to thee.32