John Dryden (Джон Драйден)

Epitaph on the Lady Whitmore

Fair, kind, and true, a treasure each alone,
A wife, a mistress, and a friend, in one;
Rest in this tomb, raised at thy husband's cost,
Here sadly summing, what he had, and lost.
Come, virgins, ere in equal bands ye join,
Come first and offer at her sacred shrine;
Pray but for half the virtues of this wife,
Compound for all the rest, with longer life;
And wish your vows, like hers, may be returned,
So loved when living, and, when dead, so mourned. 

John Dryden’s other poems:

  1. A Song (High State and Honours to others impart)
  2. On the Monument of the Marquis of Winchester
  3. Epitaph on Sir Palmes Fairborne’s Tomb in Westminster Abbey
  4. Epitaph on a Nephew in Catworth Church, Huntingdonshire
  5. To John Hoddesdon, on his Divine Epigrams




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