All the Flowers

ALL the flowers of the spring

Meet to purfume our burying;

These have but their growint prime,

And man does flourish but his time.

Survey our progress from our birth--

We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.

Courts adieu, and all delights,

All bewitching appetites!

Sweetest breath and clearest eye,

Like perfumes go out and die;

And consequently this is done

As shadows wait upon the sun.

Vain the ambition of kings

Who seek by trophies and dead things

To leave a living name behind,

And weave but nets to catch the wind.

John Webster

Call for the Robin Redbreast

CALL for the robin redbreast and the wren,

Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flowers do cover

The friendless bodies of unburied men.

Call unto his funeral dole

The ant, the field-mouse and the mole,

To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,

And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm;

But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,

For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

John Webster

Hark, Now Everything Is Still

HARK, now everything is still,

The screech-owl and the whistler shrill,

Call upon our dame aloud,

And bid her quickly don her shroud!

Much you had of land and rent;

Your length in clay's now competent:

A long war disturbed your mind;

Here your perfect peace is signed.

Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?

Sin their conception, their birth weeping,

Their life a general mist of error,

Their death a hideous storm of terror.

Strew your hair with powders sweet,

Don clean linen, bathe your feet,

And (the foul fiend more to check)

A crucifix let bless your neck:

'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day;

End your groan, and come away.

John Webster