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!