An Epitaph Upon Husband And Wife, Who died and were buried together.
TO these whom death again did
wed,
This grave’s the second marriage-bed.
For though the hand of Fate could force
’Twixt soul and body a divorce,
It could not
sever man and wife,
Because they both lived but one life.
Peace, good reader, do not
weep;
Peace, the lovers are asleep.
They, sweet
turtles, folded lie
In the last
knot that love could tie.
Let them sleep, let them sleep on,
Till the
stormy night be gone,
And the eternal morrow dawn;
Then the
curtains will be
drawn,
And they wake into a light
Whose day shall never
die in night.
Précis
Crashaw, reflecting on the grave of a young couple, reminds us that while death may part soul and body, it cannot part two souls bound together in married love. For them, death is only a brief sleep before waking to share together in the sunrise of everlasting life. (48 / 60 words)