The Saint's Bones

           When my grave is broke up once more
           To give a place to one guest more
           (For graves now serve, as girls are said,
           To be to more than one a bed)
                And he that digs it, spies
 A ring of bright hair wrapped 'round the bone,
                Will he not let us stay as one
 And think that here a pair who loved still lies
 Who thought that by this trick they'd make some way
 To make their souls at the world's last mad day
 Meet at this grave, and make just one hour's stay?

           If this fall in a time, or land,
           Where Rome's false faith has them in hand
           Then he that digs us up will bring
           Us to a priest or to a king
                To make ours bones of saints, and then
 Thou shalt be one who wept on her red locks,
                And we shall go into a box.
 All wives and maids shall love us, and some men.
 And since at such times signs are sought
 I would have that age by this verse-leaf taught
 What signs we two who loved and did no harm have wrought.

           First, we loved well, without a slip or lie,
           Yet knew not how we loved, nor why;
           That we were not of the same sex, we did not know,
           No more than God's vast host do so,
                As we came and went, yes, we
 Might kiss, but did not steal a snack;
                Our hands ne'er touched the latch
 Which love's world, wronged by our late laws, sets free.
 These signs and more we worked; but now, oh Hell
 All word and tunes can do is doomed to fail
 To tell you what a fine bright thing she was.

                                -- John Donne
                                   (done by S. Daws)

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