So soon grown old! hast thou been six years dead?
Poor earth, once by my Love inhabited!
And must I live to calculate the time
To which thy blooming youth could never climb,
But fell in the ascent! yet have not I
Studied enough thy loss's history.
How happy were mankind, if Death's strict laws
Consum'd our lamentations like the cause!
Or that our grief, turning to dust, might end
10With the dissolved body of a friend!