Vpon The Death Of His Incomparable Friend Sir Henry Raynsford Of Clifford Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCAADDAAEDDDFFGG DDGGDDDDFFDDHHIJCCFF FFFFGGDDDDDDDDDDEEDD DDGGDDGGDDKKDDBCDDGG DDDDDDDDDDAALLCCAADD GGDDAADDAAAALLDDGGDD DDGGLLAACould there be words found to expresse my losse | A |
There were some hope that this my heauy crosse | A |
Might be sustained and that wretched I | B |
Might once finde comfort but to haue him die | B |
Past all degrees that was so deare to me | C |
As but comparing him with others hee | C |
Was such a thing as if some Power should say | A |
I'le take Man on me to shew men the way | A |
What a friend should be But words come so short | D |
Of him that when I thus would him report | D |
I am vndone and hauing nought to say | A |
Mad at my selfe I throwe my penne away | A |
And beate my breast that there should be a woe | E |
So high that words cannot attaine thereto | D |
T'is strange that I from my abundant breast | D |
Who others sorrowes haue so well exprest | D |
Yet I by this in little time am growne | F |
So poore that I want to expresse mine owne | F |
I thinke the Fates perceiuing me to beare | G |
My worldly crosses without wit or feare | G |
Nay with what scorne I euer haue derided | D |
Those plagues that for me they haue oft prouided | D |
Drew them to counsaile nay conspired rather | G |
And in this businesse laid their heads together | G |
To finde some one plague that might me subuert | D |
And at an instant breake my stubborne heart | D |
They did indeede and onely to this end | D |
They tooke from me this more then man or friend | D |
Hard hearted Fates your worst thus haue you done | F |
Then let vs see what lastly you haue wonne | F |
By this your rigour in a course so strict | D |
Why see I beare all that you can inflict | D |
And hee from heauen your poore reuenge to view | H |
Laments my losse of him but laughes at you | H |
Whilst I against you execrations breath | I |
Thus are you scorn'd aboue and curst beneath | J |
Me thinks that man vnhappy though he be | C |
Is now thrice happy in respect of me | C |
Who hath no friend for that in hauing none | F |
He is not stirr'd as I am to bemone | F |
My miserable losse who but in vaine | F |
May euer looke to find the like againe | F |
This more then mine own selfe that who had seene | F |
His care of me where euer I had beene | F |
And had not knowne his actiue spirit before | G |
Vpon some braue thing working euermore | G |
He would haue sworne that to no other end | D |
He had been borne but onely for my friend | D |
I had been happy if nice Nature had | D |
Since now my lucke falls out to be so bad | D |
Made me vnperfect either of so soft | D |
And yeelding temper that lamenting oft | D |
I into teares my mournefull selfe might melt | D |
Or else so dull my losse not to haue felt | D |
I haue by my too deare experience bought | D |
That fooles and mad men whom I euer thought | D |
The most vnhappy are in deede not so | E |
And therefore I lesse pittie can bestowe | E |
Since that my sence my sorrowe so can sound | D |
On those in Bedlam that are bound | D |
And scarce feele scourging and when as I meete | D |
A foole by Children followed in the Streete | D |
Thinke I poor wretch thou from my griefe art free | G |
Nor couldst thou feele it should it light on thee | G |
But that I am a Christian and am taught | D |
By him who with his precious bloud me bought | D |
Meekly like him my crosses to endure | G |
Else would they please me well that for their cure | G |
When as they feele their conscience doth them brand | D |
Vpon themselues dare lay a violent hand | D |
Not suffering Fortune with her murdering knife | K |
Stand like a Surgeon working on the life | K |
Deserting this part that ioynt off to cut | D |
Shewing that Artire ripping then that gut | D |
Whilst the dull beastly World with her squint eye | B |
Is to behold the strange Anatomie | C |
I am persuaded that those which we read | D |
To be man haters were not so indeed | D |
The Athenian Timon and beside him more | G |
Of which the Latines as the Greekes haue store | G |
Nor not did they all humane manners hate | D |
Nor yet maligne mans dignity and state | D |
But finding our fraile life how euery day | D |
It like a bubble vanisheth away | D |
For this condition did mankinde detest | D |
Farre more incertaine then that of the beast | D |
Sure heauen doth hate this world and deadly too | D |
Else as it hath done it would neuer doe | D |
For if it did not it would ne're permit | D |
A man of so much vertue knowledge wit | D |
Of naturall goodnesse supernaturall grace | A |
Whose courses when considerately I trace | A |
Into their ends and diligently looke | L |
They serue me for Oeconomike booke | L |
By which this rough world I not onely stemme | C |
In goodnesse but grow learn'd by reading them | C |
O pardon me it my much sorrow is | A |
Which makes me vse this long Parenthesis | A |
Had heauen this world not hated as I say | D |
In height of life it had not tane away | D |
A spirit so braue so actiue and so free | G |
That such a one who would not wish to bee | G |
Rather then weare a Crowne by Armes though got | D |
So fast a friend so true a Patriot | D |
In things concerning both the worlds so wise | A |
Besides so liberall of his faculties | A |
That where he would his industrie bestowe | D |
He would haue done e're one could think to doe | D |
No more talke of the working of the Starres | A |
For plenty scarcenesse or for peace or Warres | A |
They are impostures therefore get you hence | A |
With all your Planets and their influence | A |
No more doe I care into them to looke | L |
Then in some idle Chiromantick booke | L |
Shewing the line of life and Venus mount | D |
Nor yet no more would I of them account | D |
Then what that tells me since what that so ere | G |
Might promise man long life of care and feare | G |
By nature freed a conscience cleare and quiet | D |
His health his constitution and his diet | D |
Counting a hundred fourscore at the least | D |
Propt vp by prayers yet more to be encreast | D |
All these should faile and in his fiftieth yeare | G |
He should expire henceforth let none be deare | G |
To me at all lest for my haplesse sake | L |
Before their time heauen from the world them take | L |
And leaue me wretched to lament their ends | A |
As I doe his who was a thousand friends | A |
Michael Drayton
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