Sir John Suckling

A Doubt of Martyrdom

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!