After 04 May 1609 Francis Beaumont (age 25) wrote an epitaph to Bridget Harrington (deceased):

As unthrifts groan in straw for their pawn'd beds,

As women weep for their lost maidenheads,

When both are without hope or remedy,

Such an untimely grief I have for thee.

I never saw thy face, nor did my heart

Urge forth mine eyes unto it whilst thou wert;

But being lifted hence, that, which to thee

Was death's sad dart, proved Cupid's shaft to me.

Whoever thinks me foolish that the force

Of a report can make me love a corse,

Know he that when with this I do compare

The love I do a living woman bear,

I find myself most happy: now I know

Where I can find my mistress, and can go

Unto her trimm'd bed, and can lift away

Her grass-green mantle, and her sheet display;

And touch her naked; and though th' envious mold

In which she lies uncover'd, moist, and cold,

Strive to corrupt her, she will not abide

With any art her blemishes to hide,

As many living do, and, know their need;

Yet cannot they in sweetness her exceed,

But make a stink with all their art and skill,

Which their physicians warrant with a bill;

Nor at her door doth heaps of coaches stay,

Footmen and midwives to bar up my way;

Nor needs she any maid or page to keep,

To knock me early from my golden sleep,

With letters that her honour all is gone,

If I not right her cause on such a one.

Her heart is not so hard to make me pay

For every kiss a supper and a play:

Nor will she ever open her pure lips

To utter oaths, enough to drown our ships,

To bring a plague, a famine, or the sword,

Upon the land, though she should keep her word;

Yet, ere an hour be past, in some new vein

Break them, and swear them double o'er again.

Pardon me, that with thy blest memory

I mingle mine own former misery:

Yet dare I not excuse the fate that brought

These crosses on me, for then every thought

That tended to thy love was black and foul,

Now all as pure as a new-baptiz'd soul:

For I protest, for all that I can see,

I would not lie one night in bed with thee;

Nor am I jealous, but could well abide

My foe to lie in quiet by thy side.

You worms, my rivals, whilst she was alive,

How many thousands were there that did strive

To have your freedom? for their sake forbear

Unseemly holes in her soft skin to wear:

But if you must (as what worms can abstain

To taste her tender body?) yet refrain

With your disordered eatings to deface her,

But feed yourselves so as you most may grace her.

First, through her ear-tips see you make a pair

Of holes, which, as the moist inclosed air

Turns into water, may the clean drops take,

And in her ears a pair of jewels make.

Have ye not yet enough of that white skin,

The touch whereof, in times past, would have been

Enough to have ransom'd many a thousand soul

Captive to love? If not, then upward roll

Your little bodies, where I would you have

This Epitaph upon her forehead grave:

'Living, she was young, fair, and full of wit;

Dead, all her faults are in her forehead writ.'