Poem by Andrew Marvell

An Epitaph

Enough; and leave the rest to Fame!
'Tis to commend her, but to name.
Courtship which, living, she declined,
When dead, to offer were unkind:
Nor can the truest wit, or friend,
Without detracting, her commend.

To say--she lived a virgin chaste
In this age loose and all unlaced;
Nor was, when vice is so allowed,
Of virtue or ashamed or proud;
That her soul was on Heaven so bent,
No minute but it came and went;
That, ready her last debt to pay,
She summ'd her life up every day;
Modest as morn, as mid-day bright,
Gentle as evening, cool as night:
--'Tis true; but all too weakly said.
'Twas more significant, she's dead. 

1. To Christina, Queen Of Sweden
2. Fleckno, An English Priest At Rome
3. Blake's Victory
4. An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland
5. Johannis Trottii Epitaphium

James Beattie An Epitaph ("LIKE thee I once have stemm'd the sea of life")

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