C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Epitaph on a Living Author

HERE, passenger, beneath this shed,

Lies Cowley, though entombed, not dead;

Yet freed from human toil and strife,

And all th’ impertinence of life.

Who in his poverty is neat,

And even in retirement great,

With Gold, the people’s idol, he

Holds endless war and enmity.

Can you not say, he has resigned

His breath, to this small cell confined?

With this small mansion let him have

The rest and silence of the grave:

Strew roses here as on his hearse,

And reckon this his funeral verse;

With wreaths of fragrant herbs adorn

The yet surviving poet’s urn.