To His Dying Brother, Master William Herrick

1Life of my life, take not so soon thy flight,

2But stay the time till we have bade good-night.

3Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way

4As soon dispatch'd is by the night as day.

5Let us not then so rudely henceforth go

6Till we have wept, kiss'd, sigh'd, shook hands, or so.

7There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell

8When once true lovers take their last farewell.

9What? shall we two our endless leaves take here

10Without a sad look, or a solemn tear?

11He knows not love that hath not this truth proved,

12Love is most loth to leave the thing beloved.

13Pay we our vows and go; yet when we part,

14Then, even then, I will bequeath my heart

15Into thy loving hands; for I'll keep none

16To warm my breast, when thou, my pulse, art gone,

17No, here I'll last, and walk, a harmless shade,

18About this urn, wherein thy dust is laid,

19To guard it so, as nothing here shall be

20Heavy, to hurt those sacred seeds of thee.