In fasting, prayer, faith, hope, and alms’ deedes stoare.
If anie faulte, she lovéd me too much.
Ah, pardon that, for ther are too fewe such!
Then, reader, if thou not hard-hearted be,
Praise God for hir, but sigh and praie for me.
Heare, by hir dead, I dead desire to lie,
Till, raised to life, wee meet no more to die.
1618.
ON INFANTS AND CHILDREN.
The following epitaph on an infant is by Samuel Wesley, the author of the caustic lines on the custom of perpetuating lies on monumental marble, by commemorating virtues which never had an existence,—ending thus:—