No marble marks his grave, who often worked that stone,

And taught its use so well, as all of Holland knows,

As all the Netherlands may see, and neighbouring lands,

Who twisting Gothic folly conquered with fine Roman,

And drove old heresy away with older truth;

Why does no marble mark his grave, why is he grudged

A stone commemorating many noble stones?

I think that I may know, know surer than a guess,

The fitting tomb for him would be to his design:

And since he made it not, then none of those disciples

Whom he himself trained up would dare to make his tomb:

They say that if it were not shaped exactly to

His mould, and followed not his pattern to the inch,

It would disturb his spirit, where his body lies;

And what would satisfy that spirit, limbless now,

To whom, when in dull flesh, no spirit was a peer?

35 MS dated 1 May 1658 (Huygens 1896, p. 247). Jacob van Campen (1597-1657) was the foremost exponent of Dutch Classical architecture, designer of the Mauritshuis in The Hague and of the Stadhuis (Town Hall; now the Paleis aan de Dam) in Amsterdam. He advised Huygens on the design of Hofwijk, designed the Italianate gardens of Elswout and laid out the complex and influential gardens at Cleves for Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen. When this poem was published in Korenbloemen, the title was expanded with ‘eer het geciert wierd’ (‘before it was ornamented’).