Death & Dying

Sonnet

by Joshua Sylvester 1563–1618

From The Complete Works of Joshua Sylvester, ed. A. B. Grosart (1880)

Death & Dying

They say that shadowes of deceased ghosts
Doe haunt the houses and the graves about,
Of such whose lives'-lamp went untimely out,
Delighting still in their forsaken hostes:

So, in the place where cruell love doth shoote
The fatall shaft that slue my love's delight,
I stalke and walke and wander day and night,
Even like a ghost with unperceived foote.

But those light ghosts are happier far then I,
For, at their pleasure, they can come and goe
Unto the place that hides their treasure, so,
And see the same with their fantastick eye.

Where I (alas) dare not approach the cruell
Proud Monument, that doth inclose my Jewell.

MLA

Sylvester, Joshua. “Sonnet.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/sylvester/4/.

Chicago

Sylvester, Joshua. “Sonnet.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/sylvester/4/.

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