MADAM— <br />That I might make your cabinet my tomb, <br />And for my fame, which I love next my soul, <br />Next to my soul provide the happiest room, <br />Admit to that place this last funeral scroll. <br />Others by wills give legacies, but I <br />Dying, of you do beg a legacy. <br /> <br />My fortune and my will this custom break, <br />When we are senseless grown to make stones speak, <br />Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou <br />In my grave's inside seest what thou art now, <br />Yet thou 'rt not yet so good ; till death us lay <br />To ripe and mellow there, we're stubborn clay. <br />Parents make us earth, and souls dignify <br />Us to be glass ; here to grow gold we lie. <br />Whilst in our souls sin bred and pamper'd is, <br />Our souls become worm-eaten carcases.<br /><br />John Donne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/elegy-the-end-of-funeral-elegies/
