From “A Cypress Grove.”

HAVING often and diverse times, when I had given myself to rest in the quiet solitariness of the night, found my imagination troubled with a confused fear, or sorrow, or horror, which, interrupting sleep, did astonish my senses, and rouse me all appalled, and transported in a sudden agony and amazedness; of such an unaccustomed perturbation not knowing, not being able to dive into any apparent cause, carried away with the stream of my then doubting thoughts, I began to ascribe it to that secret foreknowledge and presaging power of the prophetic mind, and to interpret such an agony to be to the spirit, as a sudden faintness and universal weariness useth to be to the body, a sign of following sickness; or as winter lightnings, earthquakes, and monsters are to commonwealths and great cities, harbingers of wretched events, and emblems of their sudden destinies.

  Hereupon, not thinking it strange, if whatsoever is human should befall me, knowing how Providence overcomes grief and discountenances crosses; and that, as we should not despair in evils which may happen to us, we should not be too confident, nor lean much to those goods we enjoy; I began to turn over in my remembrance all that could afflict miserable mortality, and to forecast everything which could beget gloomy and sad apprehensions, and with a mask of horror show itself to human eyes: till in the end, as by unities and points mathematicians are brought to great numbers and huge greatness, after many fantastical glances of the woes of mankind, and those incumbrances which follow upon life, I was brought to think, and with amazement, on the last of human terrors, or (as one termed it) the last of all dreadful and terrible evils, Death.

  For to easy censure it would appear that the soul, if it can foresee that divorcement which it is to have from the body, should not without great reason be thus over-grieved, and plunged in inconsolable and unaccustomed sorrow; considering their near union, long familiarity and love, with the great change, pain, and ugliness, which are apprehended to be the inseparable attendants of Death.

  They had their being together, parts they are of one reasonable creature, the harming of the one is the weakening of the working of the other. What sweet contentments doth the soul enjoy by the senses! They are the gates and windows of its knowledge, the organs of its delight. If it be tedious to an excellent player on the lute to abide but a few months the want of one, how much more the being without such noble tools and engines be painful to the soul. And if two pilgrims which have wandered some few miles together have a heart’s grief when they are near to part, what must the sorrow be at parting of two so loving friends and never-loathing lovers as are the body and soul?

  Death is the violent estranger of acquaintance, the eternal divorcer of marriage, the ravisher of the children from the parents, the stealer of parents from their children, the interrer of fame, the sole cause of forgetfulness, by which the living talk of those gone away as of so many shadows or age-worn stories. All strength by it is enfeebled, beauty turned into deformity and rottenness, honor into contempt, glory into baseness. It is the reasonless breaker off of all actions, by which we enjoy no more the sweet pleasures of earth, nor contemplate the stately revolutions of the heavens. The sun perpetually setteth, stars never rise unto us. It in one moment robbeth us of what with so great toil and care in many years we have heaped together. By this are succession of lineages cut short, kingdoms left heirless, and greatest states orphaned. It is not overcome by pride, soothed by flattery, tamed by entreaties, bribed by benefits, softened by lamentations, nor diverted by time. Wisdom, save this, can prevent and help everything. By Death we are exiled from this fair city of the world: it is no more a world unto us, nor we any more a people unto it. The ruins of fanes, palaces, and other magnificent frames yield a sad prospect to the soul; and how should it without horror view the wreck of such a wonderful masterpiece as is the body?…

  But that, perhaps, which anguisheth thee most is to have this glorious pageant of the world removed from thee in the spring and most delicious season of thy life; for though to die be usual, to die young may appear extraordinary. If the present fruition of these things be unprofitable and vain, what can a long continuance of them be? If God had made life happier, he had also made it longer. Stranger and new halcyon, why would thou longer nestle amidst these unconstant and stormy waves? Hast thou not already suffered enough of this world, but thou must yet endure more? To live long, is it not to be long troubled? But number thy years, which are now ———, and thou shalt find that whereas ten have outlived thee, thousands have not attained this age. One year is sufficient to behold all the magnificence of nature, nay, even one day and night; for more is but the same brought again. This sun, that moon, these stars, the varying dance of the spring, summer, autumn, winter, is that very same which the Golden Age did see. They which have the longest time lent them to live in, have almost no part of it at all, measuring it either by the space of time which is past, when they were not, or by that which is to come. Why shouldst thou then care whether thy days be many or few, which, when prolonged to the uttermost, prove, paralleled with eternity, as a tear is to the ocean? To die young, is to do that soon, and in some fewer days, which once thou must do; it is but the giving over of a game, that after never so many hazards must be lost. When thou hast lived to that age thou desirest, or one of Plato’s years, so soon as the last of thy days riseth above thy horizon, thou wilt then, as now, demand longer respite, and expect more to come. The oldest are most unwilling to die. It is hope of long life that maketh life seem short. Who will behold, and with the eye of judgment behold, the many changes attending human affairs, with the after-claps of fortune, shall never lament to die young. Who knows what alterations and sudden disasters in outward estate or inward contentments, in this wilderness of the world, might have befallen him who dieth young, if he had lived to be old? Heaven foreknowing imminent harms, taketh those which it loves to itself before they fall forth. Death in youth is like the leaving a superfluous feast before the drunken cups be presented. Pure, and (if we may so say) virgin souls carry their bodies with no small agonies, and delight not to remain long in the dregs of human corruption, still burning with a desire to turn back to the place of their rest; for this world is their inn, and not their home. That which may fall forth every hour, cannot fall out of time. Life is a journey on a dusty way; the furthest rest is Death; in this some go more heavily burdened than others. Swift and active pilgrims come to the end of it in the morning or at noon, which tortoise-paced wretches, clogged with the fragmentary rubbish of this world, scarce with great travail crawl unto at midnight. Days are not to be esteemed after the number of them, but after the goodness. More compass maketh not a sphere more complete, but as round is a little as a large ring; nor is that musician most praiseworthy who hath longest played, but he in measured accents who hath made sweetest melody. To live long hath often been a let to live well. Muse not how many years thou mightest have enjoyed life, but how sooner thou mightest have losed it; neither grudge so much that it is no better, as comfort thyself that it hath been no worse. Let it suffice that thou hast lived till this day, and (after the course of this world) not for naught thou hast had some smiles of fortune, favors of the worthiest, some friends, and thou hast never been disfavored of heaven.