While that my soul repairs to her devotion,

Here I intomb my flesh, that it betimes

May take acquaintance of this heap of dust;

To which the blast of Death's incessant motion,

Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,

Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust

My body to this school, that it may learn

To spell his elements, and find his birth

Written in dusty heraldry and lines:

Which dissolution sure doth best discern,

Comparing dust with dust, and earth with earth.

These laugh at jet and marble, put for signs,

To sever the good fellowship of dust,

And spoil the meeting. What shall point out them

When they shall bow, and kneel, and fall down flat

To kiss those heaps, which now they have in trust?

Dear flesh, while I do pray, learn here thy stem

And true descent, that, when thou shalt grow fat,

And wanton in thy cravings, thou may'st know,

That flesh is but the glass which holds the dust

That measures all our time; which also shall

Be crumbled into dust. Mark here below

How tame these ashes are, how free from lust --

That thou mayst fit thyself against thy fall.