An Anatomy of the World: the First Anniversary by John Donne

Well died the world, that we might live to see / This world of wit, in his Anatomy. / No evil wants his good; so wilder heirs / Bedew their fathers' tombs with forcèd tears, / Whose state requites their loss; whiles thus we gain / Well may we walk in blacks, but not complain. / Yet how can I consent the world is dead, / While this Muse lives, which in his spirit's stead / Seems to inform a world, and bids it be, / In spite of loss or frail mortality? / And thou, the subject of this wellborn thought, / Thrice noble maid, could'st not have found nor sought / A fitter time to yield to thy sad fate, / Than whiles this spirit lives, that can relate / Thy worth so well to our last nephews' eyne, / That they shall wonder both at his and thine. / Admired match! where strives in mutual grace / The cunning pencil, and the comely face; / A task which thy fair goodness made too much / For the bold pride of vulgar pens to touch. / Enough is us to praise them that praise thee, / And say, that but enough those praises be, / Which, hadst thou lived, had hid their fearful head / From th' angry checkings of thy modest red. / Death bars reward and shame; when envy's gone, / And gain, 'tis safe to give the dead their own. / As then the wise Egyptians wont to lay / More on their tombs than houses; these of clay, / But those of brass or marble were; so we / Give more unto thy ghost than unto thee. / Yet what we give to thee, thou gavest to us, / And may'st but thank thyself for being thus. / Yet what thou gavest and wert, O happy maid, / Thy grace profess'd all due, where 'tis repaid. / So these high songs, that to thee suited bin, / Serve but to sound thy Maker's praise in thine, / Which thy dear soul as sweetly sings to him / Amid the choir of saints, and Seraphim, / As any angel's tongue can sing of thee. / The subjects differ, though the skill agree. / For as by infant years men judge of age, / Thy early love, thy virtues, did presage / What high part thou bear'st in those best of songs, / Whereto no burden nor no end belongs. / Sing on, thou virgin soul, whose lossful gain / Thy lovesick parents have bewail'd in vain; / Ne'er may thy name be in our songs forgot, / Till we shall sing thy ditty and thy note.

Joseph Hall