A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick

66. TO HIS DYING BROTHER, MASTER WILLIAM HERRICK

     Life of my life, take not so soon thy flight,
     But stay the time till we have bade good-night.
     Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way
     As soon dispatch'd is by the night as day.
     Let us not then so rudely henceforth go
     Till we have wept, kiss'd, sigh'd, shook hands, or so.
     There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell
     When once true lovers take their last farewell.
     What? shall we two our endless leaves take here
     Without a sad look, or a solemn tear?
     He knows not love that hath not this truth proved,
     Love is most loth to leave the thing beloved.
     Pay we our vows and go; yet when we part,
     Then, even then, I will bequeath my heart
     Into thy loving hands; for I'll keep none
     To warm my breast, when thou, my pulse, art gone,
     No, here I'll last, and walk, a harmless shade,
     About this urn, wherein thy dust is laid,
     To guard it so, as nothing here shall be
     Heavy, to hurt those sacred seeds of thee.