The Rape of the Lock. A mock-heroic poem. Canto I • Paragraph 173
Stage 1 of 6

Read it through once

“To kill myself,” quoth she, “alack, what were it, But with my body my poor soul’s pollution? They that lose half with greater patience bear it Than they whose whole is swallowed in confusion. That mother tries a merciless conclusion Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one, Will slay the other, and be nurse to none.