Sonnet LXXXI (In Death): Since Her Death He Has Ceased to Live

Death cannot make that beauteous face less fair,
But that sweet face may lend to death a grace;
My spirit's guide! from her each good I trace;
Who learns to die, may seek his lesson there.
That holy one! who not his blood would spare,
But did the dark Tartarean bolts unbrace;
He, too, doth from my soul death's terrors chase:
Then welcome, death! thy impress I would wear.
And linger not! 'tis time that I had fled;
Alas! my stay hath little here avail'd,
Since she, my Laura blest, resign'd her breath:
Life's spring in me hath since that hour lain dead,
In her I lived, my life in hers exhaled,
The hour she died I felt within me death!