The Bride's Burial.
To the Tune of, The Lady's Fall, etc.
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COme mourn, come mourn with me,
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you loyal lovers all,
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Lament my loss in weeds of woe,
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whom griping grief doth thrall:
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Like to the dropping vine,
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cut by the gardner's knife,
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Even so my heart with sorrow slain,
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hush bleed for my sweet wife.
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By death, that grisly ghost,
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my turtle-dove is slain
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And I am left, unhappy man,
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to spend my days in p[a]in.
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Her beauty laid so bright,
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like roses in their prime,
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Is wasted like the mountain's snow,
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by force of Phoebus shine.
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Her fair red coloured cheeks
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now pale and maid her eyes,
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That late did shine like cristel stars,
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alas, their 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 like the earthly clay,
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yea, cold and stiff withal.
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When as the morning-star,
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her golden gates had spread,
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And that the glistering sun arose
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forth from fair Theis 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 lovly Queen of heaven,
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so shone she in her bower.
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Attired was she then
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like Flora in her pride,
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As fair as any of Diana's nymphs,
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so lookt my loving bride.
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And as fair Hellens face,
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gave Grecian dames the lurch,
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So did my dear exceed in sight,
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all virgins in the church.
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When he had knit the knot,
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of holy wedlock band,
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Like alabaster joyn'd to jet,
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so stood we hand in hand:
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Then loe a chilling cold
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struck every vital part,
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& griping grief like pangs of death
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seiz'd on my true love's heart.
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Down in a swound 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 my rosy red,
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throughout her comely face,
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As Phoebus beams with watry clouds
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o'er covered for a space.
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When with a grievous groan,
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and voice both hoarse and dry,
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Farewel, quoth she, my loving friend
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for I this day must dye:
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The messenger of God,
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with golden trumpet I see,
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With many other Angels more,
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which sound and call for me.
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Instead of musick sweet
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go towl my passing-bell,
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And with sweet flowers strow my grave
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that in my chamber sinell;
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Strip off my bride's acray,
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my cork-shooes from my feet,
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And gentle mother be not coy,
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to bring my binding sheet.
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My wedding-dinner drest,
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bestow upon the poor.
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And on the hungry, needy, mam'd,
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that craveth at the door.
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Instead of virgins young
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my bride-bed for to see;
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Go cause some curious carpenter
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to wake a chest for me.
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My bride laces of silk,
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bestow'd on maiden's meet;
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May fitly serve when I am dead
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to tie my hands and feet.
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And thou my lover true;
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my husband and my friend,
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Let me intreat thee here to stay;
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until my life doth end.
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Now leave to talk of love,
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and humbly on your knee;
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Direct your prayers unto God,
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but mourn no more for me;
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In love as we have liv'd,
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in love let us depart;
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And I in token of my love
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do kiss the with my heart.
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O stanch those-hootless tears
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thy weeping is in vain;
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I am not lost, for we in heaven,
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shall one day meet again.
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With that she turn'd aside,
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as one dispos'd to sleep,
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And like a lamb departed life,
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whose friends did sorely weep.
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Her true love seeing this,
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did fetcht a grievous groan,
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As tho' his heart would burst in too
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and thus he made his moan:
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O dismal and unhappy day,
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a day of grief and care,
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That hath bereft the sun so high,
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whose beams refresh the air.
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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 thee 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 her grave
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a maiden and a wife.
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A garland fresh and fair
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of lillies there was made:
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In sign of her virginity,
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and on her coffin laid:
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Sir maidens all in white
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did bear her to the ground;
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The bells did ring in solemn sort,
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and made a doleful sound.
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In earth they laid her then,
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for hungry worms 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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