This poem was first published in 1633.

Elegy V: His Picture

 Here take my picture, though I bid farewell;
 Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.
 ’Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more
 When we are shadows both, than ’twas before.
 When weather-beaten I come back; my hand,
 Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun-beams tanned,
 My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
 With care’s rash sudden hoariness 1 o’erspread,                        1 gray hair from old age
 My body a sack of bones, broken within,
 And powder’s 2 blue stains scattered on my skin;                       2 gunpowder
 If rival fools tax thee to have loved a man,
 So foul, and coarse, as oh, I may seem then,
 This shall say what I was: and thou shalt say,
 Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay?
 Or do they reach his judging mind, that he
 Should now love less, what he did love to see?
 That which in him was fair and delicate,
 Was but the milk, which in love’s childish state
 Did nurse it: who now is grown strong enough
 To feed on that, which to disused tastes seems tough.