The Brides Buriall. To the tune of the Ladies fall.
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COme mourn, come mourn with me
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you loyall lovers all,
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Lament my losse in weedes of woe,
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whom griping griefe doth thrall,
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Like to the dropping vine,
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cut downe by gardners knife,
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Even so my heart with sorrow staine,
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doth bleed for my sweet wife.
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By Death (that grisly Ghost)
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my turtle Dove is slaine:
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And I am lost unhappy man,
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to spend my daies in paine:
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Her beauty late so bright,
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like Roses in their prime,
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Is wasted like the mountaines snow,
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by force of Phoebus shine.
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Her faire red coloured lips,
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now pale and wan, her eyes
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That late did shine like christall stars,
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alas her light it dies:
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Her pretty lilly hands,
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with fingers long and small,
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In colour lie like earthly clay,
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yea cold and stiffe withall.
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When as the morning gray,
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her golden gate had spred,
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And that the glistring sunne arose,
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forth from faire Thetis bed:
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Then did my love awake,
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most like a lilly flower,
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And as the lovely Queene of heaven,
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so shind she in her bower.
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Attired she was then,
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like Flora in her pride,
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As faire as brave Dianaes Nimphs,
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so lookt my lovely Bride,
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And as faire Hellens face,
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gave Grecian Dames the lurch,
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So did my deare exceed in sight,
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all Virgins in the Church.
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When we had knit the knot,
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of holy wedlocks band:
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Like Alabaster joynd to jett,
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so stood we hand in hand:
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Then loe a chilling cold,
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struk every vitall part;
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And griping griefe like pangs of death,
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seazd on my true Loves heart.
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Downe in a sound she fell,
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as cold as any stone:
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Like Venus picture lacking life,
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so was my Love brought home.
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At length arose a red,
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throughout her comely face,
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As Phoebus beames with watry clouds
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ore covered her face.
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Then with a grievous groane,
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and voyce most hoarse and dry,
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Farewell quoth shee my loving friends,
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for I this day must die.
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The messenger of God,
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with golden Trumpe I see:
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With many other Angels more,
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doth sound and call for me.
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In stead of musicke sweet,
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goe tole my passing bell:
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And with these flowers strow my grave
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that in my chamber smell:
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Strip off my Brides array,
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my Corke-shooes from my feet,
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And gentle mother be not coy,
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to bring my winding sheet.
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My Wedding dinner drest,
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bestow upon the poore:
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And on the hungry needy maind,
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that craveth at the doore.
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In stead of Virgins young,
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my Bride-bed for to see,
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Goe cause some cunning Carpente[r]
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to make a chest for mee.
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My Bride laces of silke,
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bestowd on maidens meete,
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May fitly serve when I am dead,
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to tie my hands and feete:
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And thou my Lover true,
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my husband and my friend,
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Let me intreate thee here to stay,
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untill my life doth end.
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Now leave to talke of love,
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and humbly on your knee:
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Direct your prayer unto God,
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but mourne no more for me.
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In love as we have lived,
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in love let us depart:
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And I in token of my love,
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doe kisse thee with my heart.
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O stench thy bootlesse teares,
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thy weeping is in vaine:
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I am not lost, for we in heaven,
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shall one day meet againe.
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With that she turnd her head,
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as one disposd to sleepe,
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And like a Lambe departed life:
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while friends full sore did weepe.
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Her true Love seeing this,
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did fetch a grievous groane,
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As though his heart did burst in two,
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and thus he made his moane:
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O dismall heavy day,
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a day of griefe and care,
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That hath bereft the Sun so high,
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whose beames refresht the ayre.
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Now woe unto the world,
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and all that therein dwell,
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O that I were with her in heaven,
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for here I live in hell:
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And now this Lover lives,
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a discontented life:
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Whose Bride was brought unto th[e] gra[ve]
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a Maiden and a Wife.
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A garland fresh and faire,
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of Lillies there was made,
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In signe of her Virginity,
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and on her Coffin laid:
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Sixe maidens all in white,
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did beare her to the ground,
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The Bells did ring in solemne sort,
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and made a solemne sound.
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In earth they laid her then,
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for hungry wormes a prey:
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So shall the fairest face alive,
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at length be brought to clay.
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