A Doubt of Martyrdom

O FOR some honest lover's ghost,

   Some kind unbodied post

        Sent from the shades below!

        I strangely long to know

Whether the noble chaplets wear

Those that their mistress' scorn did bear

        Or those that were used kindly.

For whatsoe'er they tell us here

   To make those sufferings dear,

        'Twill there, I fear, be found

           That to the being crown'd

T' have loved alone will not suffice,

Unless we also have been wise

        And have our loves enjoy'd.

What posture can we think him in

   That, here unloved, again

        Departs, and 's thither gone

        Where each sits by his own?

Or how can that Elysium be

Where I my mistress still must see

        Circled in other's arms?

For there the judges all are just,

   And Sophonisba must

        Be his whom she held dear,

        Not his who loved her here.

The sweet Philoclea, since she died,

Lies by her Pirocles his side,

        Not by Amphialus.

Some bays, perchance, or myrtle bough

   For difference crowns the brow

        Of those kind souls that were

        The noble martyrs here:

And if that be the only odds

(As who can tell?), ye kinder gods,

        Give me the woman here!