On Salathiel Pavy

Ben Jonson

A Child Of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel


Weep with me, all you that read
    This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed
    Death’s self is sorry.
’Twas a child that so did thrive
    In grace and feature,
As Heaven and Nature seem’d to strive
    Which own’d the creature.
Years he number’d scarce thirteen
    When Fates turn’d cruel,
Yet three fill’d zodiacs had he been
    The stage’s jewel;
And did act (what now we moan)
    Old men so duly,
As sooth the Parcae thought him one,
    He play’d so truly.
So, by error, to his fate
    They all consented;
But, viewing him since, alas, too late!
    They have repented;
And have sought, to give new birth,
    In baths to steep him;
But, being so much too good for earth,
    Heaven vows to keep him.

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