Malicious Fate, seeing this would not do,
Made Strephon wretched, to make me so too.
Of all her plagues, this was the weightiest stroke,
This blow my resolved heart hath almost broke:
Yet, spite of Fate, this comfort I’ve in store,
She’s no room left for any ill thing more.
MARY MOLLINEUX
c. 1648-1695
32. On the Sight of a Skull
Behold, ambitious lump of clay refined,