While that my soul repairs to her devotion, <br />Here I intomb my flesh, that it betimes <br />May take acquaintance of this heap of dust; <br />To which the blast of death's incessant motion, <br />Fed with the exhalation of our crimes, <br />Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust <br /> <br />My body to this school, that it may learn <br />To spell his elements, and find his birth <br />Written in dusty heraldry and lines; <br />Which dissolution sure doth best discern, <br />Comparing dust with dust, and earth with earth. <br />These laugh at jet and marble put for signs, <br /> <br />To sever the good fellowship of dust, <br />And spoil the meeting. What shall point out them, <br />When they shall bow, and kneel, and fall down flat <br />To kiss those heaps, which now they have in trust? <br />Dear flesh, while I do pray, learn here thy stem <br />And true descent, that when thou shalt grow fat <br /> <br />And wanton in thy cravings, thou mayst know <br />That flesh is but the glass which holds the dust <br />That measures all our time; which also shall <br />Be crumbled into dust. Mark, here below <br />How tame these ashes are, how free from lust, <br />That thou mayst fit thyself against thy fall.<br /><br />George Herbert<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/church-monuments/
