Written by
John Donne |
Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die,
And yet complain'st of his great jealousy;
If swol'n with poison, he lay in his last bed,
His body with a sere-bark covered,
Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can
The nimblest crocheting musician,
Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew
His soul out of one hell, into a new,
Made deaf with his poor kindred's howling cries,
Begging with few feigned tears, great legacies,
Thou wouldst not weep, but jolly and frolic be,
As a slave, which tomorrow should be free;
Yet weep'st thou, when thou seest him hungerly
Swallow his own death, hearts-bane jealousy.
O give him many thanks, he's courteous,
That in suspecting kindly warneth us
Wee must not, as we used, flout openly,
In scoffing riddles, his deformity;
Nor at his board together being sat,
With words, nor touch, scarce looks adulterate;
Nor when he swol'n, and pampered with great fare
Sits down, and snorts, caged in his basket chair,
Must we usurp his own bed any more,
Nor kiss and play in his house, as before.
Now I see many dangers; for that is
His realm, his castle, and his diocese.
But if, as envious men, which would revile
Their Prince, or coin his gold, themselves exile
Into another country, and do it there,
We play in another house, what should we fear?
There we will scorn his houshold policies,
His seely plots, and pensionary spies,
As the inhabitants of Thames' right side
Do London's Mayor; or Germans, the Pope's pride.
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Written by
Oliver Wendell Holmes |
WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,-- is he still the same,
Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?
Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I know him,--
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey;
In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem,
Oft have I met him from my earliest day:
In my old Aesop, toiling with his bundle,--
His load of sticks,-- politely asking Death,
Who comes when called for,-- would he lug or trundle
His fagot for him?-- he was scant of breath.
And sad "Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher,"--
Has he not stamped tbe image on my soul,
In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher
Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl?
Yes, long, indeed, I 've known him at a distance,
And now my lifted door-latch shows him here;
I take his shrivelled hand without resistance,
And find him smiling as his step draws near.
What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us,
Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime;
Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves us,
The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time!
Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant,
Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep,
Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant,
Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep!
Still as the silver cord gets worn and slender,
Its lightened task-work tugs with lessening strain,
Hands get more helpful, voices, grown more tender,
Soothe with their softened tones the slumberous brain.
Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers,
Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past,
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers
That warm its creeping life-blood till the last.
Dear to its heart is every loving token
That comes unbidden era its pulse grows cold,
Ere the last lingering ties of life are broken,
Its labors ended and its story told.
Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices,
For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh,
And through the chorus of its jocund voices
Throbs the sharp note of misery's hopeless cry.
As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying
From some far orb I track our watery sphere,
Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying,
The silvered globule seems a glistening tear.
But Nature lends her mirror of illusion
To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes,
And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion
The wintry landscape and the summer skies.
So when the iron portal shuts behind us,
And life forgets us in its noise and whirl,
Visions that shunned the glaring noonday find us,
And glimmering starlight shows the gates of pearl.
I come not here your morning hour to sadden,
A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff,--
I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden
This vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh.
If word of mine another's gloom has brightened,
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came;
If hand of mine another's task has lightened,
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim.
But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers,
These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's release;
These feebler pulses bid me leave to others
The tasks once welcome; evening asks for peace.
Time claims his tribute; silence now golden;
Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre;
Though to your love untiring still beholden,
The curfew tells me-- cover up the fire.
And now with grateful smile and accents cheerful,
And warmer heart than look or word can tell,
In simplest phrase-- these traitorous eyes are tearful--
Thanks, Brothers, Sisters,-- Children,-- and farewell!
|
Written by
Kingsley Amis |
See her come bearing down, a tidy craft!
Gaily her topsails bulge, her sidelights burn!
There's jigging in her rigging fore and aft,
And beauty's self, not name, limned on her stern.
See at her head the Jolly Roger flutters!
"God, is she fully manned? If she's one short.
.
.
"
Cadet, bargee, longshoreman, shellback mutters;
Drowned is reason that should me comfort.
But habit, like a cork, rides the dark flood,
And, like a cork, keeps her in walls of glass;
Faint legacies of brine tingle my blood,
The tide-wind's fading echoes, as I pass.
Now, jolly ship, sign on a jolly crew:
God bless you, dear, and all who sail in you.
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Written by
Emily Dickinson |
You left me -- Sire -- two Legacies --
A Legacy of Love
A Heavenly Father would suffice
Had He the offer of --
You left me Boundaries of Pain --
Capacious as the Sea --
Between Eternity and Time --
Your Consciousness -- and Me --
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Written by
Andrew Marvell |
Daphnis must from Chloe part:
Now is come the dismal Hour
That must all his Hopes devour,
All his Labour, all his Art.
Nature, her own Sexes foe,
Long had taught her to be coy:
But she neither knew t' enjoy,
Nor yet let her Lover go.
But, with this sad News surpriz'd,
Soon she let that Niceness fall;
And would gladly yield to all,
So it had his stay compriz'd.
Nature so her self does use
To lay by her wonted State,
Left the World should separate;
Sudden Parting closer glews.
He, well read in all the wayes
By which men their Siege maintain,
Knew not that the Fort to gain
Better 'twas the siege to raise.
But he came so full possest
With the Grief of Parting thence,
That he had not so much Sence
As to see he might be blest.
Till Love in her Language breath'd
Words she never spake before;
But then Legacies no more
To a dying Man bequeath'd.
For, Alas, the time was spent,
Now the latest minut's run
When poor Daphnis is undone,
Between Joy and Sorrow rent.
At that Why, that Stay my Dear,
His disorder'd Locks he tare;
And with rouling Eyes did glare,
And his cruel Fate forswear.
As the Soul of one scarce dead,
With the shrieks of Friends aghast,
Looks distracted back in hast,
And then streight again is fled.
So did wretched Daphnis look,
Frighting her he loved most.
At the last, this Lovers Ghost
Thus his Leave resolved took.
Are my Hell and Heaven Joyn'd
More to torture him that dies?
Could departure not suffice,
But that you must then grow kind?
Ah my Chloe how have I
Such a wretched minute found,
When thy Favours should me wound
More than all thy Cruelty?
So to the condemned Wight
The delicious Cup we fill;
And allow him all he will,
For his last and short Delight.
But I will not now begin
Such a Debt unto my Foe;
Nor to my Departure owe
What my Presence could not win.
Absence is too much alone:
Better 'tis to go in peace,
Than my Losses to increase
By a late Fruition.
Why should I enrich my Fate?
'Tis a Vanity to wear,
For my Executioner,
Jewels of so high a rate.
Rather I away will pine
In a manly stubborness
Than be fatted up express
For the Canibal to dine.
Whilst this grief does thee disarm,
All th' Enjoyment of our Love
But the ravishment would prove
Of a Body dead while warm.
And I parting should appear
Like the Gourmand Hebrew dead,
While he Quailes and Manna fed,
And does through the Desert err.
Or the Witch that midnight wakes
For the Fern, whose magick Weed
In one minute casts the Seed.
And invisible him makes.
Gentler times for Love are ment:
Who for parting pleasure strain
Gather Roses in the rain,
Wet themselves and spoil their Sent.
Farewel therefore all the fruit
Which I could from Love receive:
Joy will not with Sorrow weave,
Nor will I this Grief pollute.
Fate I come, as dark, as sad,
As thy Malice could desire;
Yet bring with me all the Fire
That Love in his Torches had.
At these words away he broke;
As who long has praying ly'n,
To his Heads-man makes the Sign,
And receives the parting stroke.
But hence Virgins all beware.
Last night he with Phlogis slept;
This night for Dorinda kept;
And but rid to take the Air.
Yet he does himself excuse;
Nor indeed without a Cause.
For, according to the Lawes,
Why did Chloe once refuse?
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
To tell the Beauty would decrease
To state the Spell demean --
There is a syllable-less Sea
Of which it is the sign --
My will endeavors for its word
And fails, but entertains
A Rapture as of Legacies --
Of introspective Mines --
|
Written by
William Strode |
Though after Death, Thanks lessen into Praise,
And Worthies be not crown'd with gold, but bayes;
Shall we not thank? To praise Thee all agree;
We Debtors must out doe it, heartily.
Deserved Nobility of True Descent,
Though not so old in Thee grew Ancient:
We number not the Tree of Branched Birth,
But genealogie of Vertue, spreading forth
To many Births in value.
Piety,
True Valour, Bounty, Meeknesse, Modesty,
These noble off-springs swell Thy Name as much,
As Richards, Edwards, three, foure, twenty such:
For in thy Person's linage surnam'd are
The great, the good, the wise, the just, the faire.
One of these stiles innobles a whole stemme;
If all be found in One, what race like him!
Long stayres of birth, unlesse they likewise grow
To higher vertue, must descend more low.
When water comes through numerous veins of lead,
'Tis water still; Thy blood, from One pipe's head,
Grew Aqua-vit? streight, with spirits fill'd,
As not traduc'd, but rais'd, sublim'd, distill'd.
Nobility farre spread, I may behold,
Like the expanded skie, or dissolv'd gold,
Much rarified; I see't contracted here
Into a starre, the strength of all the spheare;
Extracted like the Elixir from the mine,
And highten'd so that 'tis too soone divine.
Divinity continues not beneath;
Alas nor He; but though He passe by death,
He that for many liv'd, gaines many lives
After hee's dead: Each friend and servant strives
To give him breath in praise; this Hospital,
That Prison, Colledge, Church, must needs recall
To mind their Patron; whose rich legacies
In forreigne lands, and under other skies
To them assign'd, shew that his heart did even
In France love England, as in England Heaven:
Heav'n well perceiv'd this double pious love,
Both to his Country here, and that above:
Therefore the day, that saw Him landed here,
Hath seen him landed in his Haven there;
The selfe-same day (but two yeares interpos'd)
Saw Sun and Him round shining twice & clos'd.
No Citizen so covetous could be
Of getting wealth, as of bestowing, He;
His Body and Estate went as they came,
Stript of Appendix Both, and left the same
But in th' Originall; Necessity
Devested one, the other Charity.
It cost him more to clothe his soule in death,
Than e're to cloth his flesh for short-liv'd breath;
And whereas Lawes exact from Niggards dead
A Portion for the Poore, they now are said
To moderate His Bounty; never such
Was known but once, that men should give too much:
A Tabernacle then was built, and now
The like in heav'n is purchas'd: Learn you how;
Partly by building Men, and partly by
Erecting walls, by new-found Chymistry,
Turning of Gold to Stones.
Our Christ-Church Pile,
Great Henrie's Monument, shall grow awhile
With Bayning's Treasure; who a way hath took.
Like those at Westminster, to fill a nook
'Mongst beds of Kings.
Thus speak, speak while we may
For Stones will speak when We are hush'd in Clay.
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Written by
William Strode |
When men for injuryes unsatisfy'd,
For hopes cutt off, for debts not fully payd,
For legacies in vain expected, mourne
Over theyr owne respects within the urne,
Races of tears all striveing first to fall
As frequent are as eye and funerall;
Then high swolne sighes drawne in and sent out strong
Seeme to call back the soule or goe along.
Goodness is seldome such a theam of woe
Unless to her owne tribe some one or two;
But here's a man, (alas a shell of man!)
Whose innocence, more white than silver swan,
Now finds a streame of teares; such perfect greif
That in the traine of mourners hee is cheife
Who lives the greatest gainer; and would faine
Bee now prefer'd unto his loss againe.
The webb of nerves with subtill branches spred
Over the little world, are in theyr head
Scarce so united as in him were knitt
All his dependants: Hee that strives to sitt
So lov'd of all must bee a man as square
As vertues selfe; which those that fly and feare
Can never hate.
How seldome have we seene
Such store of flesh joyn'd with so little sin?
His body was not greater than his soule,
Whose limbs were vertues able to controule
All grudg of sloth: and as the body's weight
Hal'd to the centre; so the soule as light
Heav'd upward to her goale.
This civill jarre
Could not hold out, but made them part as farre
As earth and heaven: from whence the one shall come
To make her mate more fresh, less cumbersome.
After so sound a sleepe, so sweet a rest,
And both shall then appeare so trimly drest
As freinds that goe to meet: the body shall
Then seeme a soule, the soule Angellicall:
A beautious smile shall passe from that to this,
The joyning soule shall then the body kisse
With its owne lipps: so great shall be the store
Of joy and love that now thei'l part no more;
Such hope hath dust! besides which happines
Death hath not made his earthly share the lesse,
Or quite bereft him of his honors here,
But added more; for liveing hee did steere
The fellowes only; but since hee is dead
Hee's made a president unto theyr head.
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