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Yet, that loose Flames some penalty might meet,
She thus did penance in her winding-sheet.
May this not-still-born Gibbet-issue thrive!
The first the knife ere Midwif'd there alive.
DEath's Metamorphos'd and hath chang'd his name,
And nature too; then Death with Life's the same.
This Wench as free of Soule as Body try'd
More then by living, to spight Death, and di'd.
Thus Hells Purveigher over-charg'd growes dull,
Or (which is all as strange) he's mercifull.
Or rather Justice with it selfe at strife
Judg'd the Wench worthy both of death and life.
The crime was hainous, but (if you know all)
T'was not soe High as to be Capitall.
I'le stretch my Muse, but that a verse
I'le hang upon thy living hearse.
Chime in yee witts, and rhyme a Knell,
For Death herselfe is lately fell.
Never was yet this meagre fiend,
Soe baffled by the woman kind.
Nan playes a prize with death, shee mounts
The stage, and there brave soule recounts
Her former prancks, and then Comes on
The Fury with her hempen thong;
As boldly she enters the list,
And though by one unhappy twist,
Her thread of life did snap in twaine,
Yet by this foile she lives againe.
And doth defie the fatall Spinster,
And all the brood of Pluto's Minster.
Have you not known how variously
A vapour betwixt Earth and Skye
Doth dance, till by contrary flame
It's frighted to its forme againe?
