Written by
Katherine Philips |
Wee falsely think it due unto our friends,
That we should grieve for their too early ends:
He that surveys the world with serious eys,
And stripps Her from her grosse and weak disguise,
Shall find 'tis injury to mourn their fate;
He only dy's untimely who dy's Late.
For if 'twere told to children in the womb,
To what a stage of mischief they must come
Could they foresee with how much toile and sweat
Men court that Guilded nothing, being Great;
What paines they take not to be what they seem,
Rating their blisse by others false esteem,
And sacrificing their content, to be
Guilty of grave and serious Vanity;
How each condition hath its proper Thorns,
And what one man admires, another Scorns;
How frequently their happiness they misse,
And so farre from agreeing what it is,
That the same Person we can hardly find,
Who is an houre together in a mind;
Sure they would beg a period of their breath,
And what we call their birth would count their Death.
Mankind is mad; for none can live alone
Because their joys stand by comparison:
And yet they quarrell at Society,
And strive to kill they know not whom, nor why,
We all live by mistake, delight in Dreames,
Lost to ourselves, and dwelling in extreames;
Rejecting what we have, though ne're so good,
And prizing what we never understood.
compar'd to our boystrous inconstancy
Tempests are calme, and discords harmony.
Hence we reverse the world, and yet do find
The God that made can hardly please our mind.
We live by chance, and slip into Events;
Have all of Beasts except their Innocence.
The soule, which no man's pow'r can reach, a thing
That makes each women Man, each man a King.
Doth so much loose, and from its height so fall,
That some content to have no Soule at all.
"Tis either not observ'd, or at the best
By passion fought withall, by sin deprest.
Freedome of will (god's image) is forgot;
And if we know it, we improve it not.
Our thoughts, thou nothing can be more our own,
Are still unguided, verry seldom known.
Time 'scapes our hands as water in a Sieve,
We come to dy ere we begin to Live.
Truth, the most suitable and noble Prize,
Food of our spirits, yet neglected ly's.
Errours and shaddows ar our choice, and we
Ow our perdition to our Own decree.
If we search Truth, we make it more obscure;
And when it shines, we can't the Light endure;
For most men who plod on, and eat, and drink,
Have nothing less their business then to think;
And those few that enquire, how small a share
Of Truth they fine! how dark their notions are!
That serious evenness that calmes the Brest,
And in a Tempest can bestow a rest,
We either not attempt, or elce [sic] decline,
By every triffle snatch'd from our design.
(Others he must in his deceits involve,
Who is not true unto his own resolve.)
We govern not our selves, but loose the reins,
Courting our bondage to a thousand chains;
And with as man slaverys content,
As there are Tyrants ready to Torment,
We live upon a Rack, extended still
To one extreme, or both, but always ill.
For since our fortune is not understood,
We suffer less from bad then from the good.
The sting is better drest and longer lasts,
As surfeits are more dangerous than fasts.
And to compleat the misery to us,
We see extreames are still contiguous.
And as we run so fast from what we hate,
Like Squibs on ropes, to know no middle state;
So (outward storms strengthen'd by us) we find
Our fortune as disordred as our mind.
But that's excus'd by this, it doth its part;
A treacherous world befits a treacherous heart.
All ill's our own; the outward storms we loath
Receive from us their birth, or sting, or both;
And that our Vanity be past a doubt,
'Tis one new vanity to find it out.
Happy are they to whom god gives a Grave,
And from themselves as from his wrath doeth save.
'Tis good not to be born; but if we must,
The next good is, soone to return to Dust:
When th'uncag'd soule, fled to Eternity,
Shall rest and live, and sing, and love, and See.
Here we but crawle and grope, and play and cry;
Are first our own, then others Enemy:
But there shall be defac'd both stain and score,
For time, and Death, and sin shall be no more.
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Written by
Thomas Hood |
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread--
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt."
"Work! work! work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work — work — work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's Oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!
"Work — work — work
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work — work — work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!
"Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch — stitch — stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt.
But why do I talk of Death?
That Phantom of grisly bone,
I hardly fear its terrible shape,
It seems so like my own —
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep;
Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!
"Work — work — work!
My Labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread — and rags.
That shatter'd roof — and this naked floor —
A table — a broken chair —
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!
"Work — work — work!
From weary chime to chime,
Work — work — work!
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,
As well as the weary hand.
"Work — work — work,
In the dull December light,
And work — work — work,
When the weather is warm and bright —
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the spring.
Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet —
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!
Oh! but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!
No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,
But only time for Grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!"
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread —
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, —
Would that its tone could reach the Rich! —
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"
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Written by
Gerard Manley Hopkins |
Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.
Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.
And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.
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Written by
Emily Dickinson |
As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies
As the Vulture teased
Forces the Broods in lonely Valleys
As the Tiger eased
By but a Crumb of Blood, fasts Scarlet
Till he meet a Man
Dainty adorned with Veins and Tissues
And partakes -- his Tongue
Cooled by the Morsel for a moment
Grows a fiercer thing
Till he esteem his Dates and Cocoa
A Nutrition mean
I, of a finer Famine
Deem my Supper dry
For but a Berry of Domingo
And a Torrid Eye.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
SONNET XLIV. Mie venture al venir son tarde e pigre. FEW ARE THE SWEETS, BUT MANY THE BITTERS OF LOVE. Ever my hap is slack and slow in coming,Desire increasing, ay my hope uncertainWith doubtful love, that but increaseth pain;For, tiger-like, so swift it is in parting.Alas! the snow black shall it be and scalding,The sea waterless, and fish upon the mountain,The Thames shall back return into his fountain,And where he rose the sun shall take [his] lodging,Ere I in this find peace or quietness;Or that Love, or my Lady, right wisely,Leave to conspire against me wrongfully.[Pg 59]And if I have, after such bitterness,One drop of sweet, my mouth is out of taste,That all my trust and travail is but waste. Wyatt. Late to arrive my fortunes are and slow—Hopes are unsure, desires ascend and swell,Suspense, expectancy in me rebel—But swifter to depart than tigers go.Tepid and dark shall be the cold pure snow,The ocean dry, its fish on mountains dwell,The sun set in the East, by that old wellAlike whence Tigris and Euphrates flow,Ere in this strife I peace or truce shall find,Ere Love or Laura practise kinder ways,Sworn friends, against me wrongfully combined.After such bitters, if some sweet allays,Balk'd by long fasts my palate spurns the fare,Sole grace from them that falleth to my share.
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