Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears, Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth Upon the sides of mirth, Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing; Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs Upon the flesh to cleave, Set pains therein and many a grievous thing, And many sorrows after each his wise For armlet and for gorget and for sleeve.
O Love's lute heard about the lands of death, Left hanged upon the trees that were therein; O Love and Time and Sin, Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath,
MEanwhile the hainous and despightfull act
Of Satan done in Paradise, and how
Hee in the Serpent, had perverted Eve,
Her Husband shee, to taste the fatall fruit,
Was known in Heav'n; for what can scape the Eye
Of God All-seeing, or deceave his Heart
Omniscient, who in all things wise and just,
Hinder'd not Satan to attempt the minde
Of Chesterton, In the County of Huntingdon, Esquire How blessed is he, who leads a Country Life, Unvex’d with anxious Cares, and void of Strife! Who studying Peace, and shunning Civil Rage, Enjoy’d his Youth, and now enjoys his Age:
I tell thee, Dick, where I have been, Where I the rarest things have seen; Oh, things without compare! Such sights again cannot be found In any place on English ground, Be it at wake, or fair.
Even as the sun with purple-colour’d face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-fac’d suitor ‘gins to woo him.
A Tower of Brass, one would have said, And Locks, and Bolts, and Iron Bars, Might have preserv’d one innocent Maiden-head. The jealous Father thought he well might spare All further jealous Care. And, as he walk’d, t’himself alone he smiled, To think how Venus’ Arts he had beguil’d; And when he slept, his Rest was deep: But Venus laugh’d, to see and hear him sleep: She taught the am’rous Jove A magical Receipt in Love, Which arm’d him stronger, and which help’d him more, Than all his Thunder did, and his Almightyship before.
1 Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face! Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose, And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.
2 The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day, The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme, The similitudes of the past and those of the future, The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the river, The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away, The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,
Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step, She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage To meet him in the doorway with the news And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’ She pushed him outward with her through the door And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said. She took the market things from Warren’s arms And set them on the porch, then drew him down To sit beside her on the wooden steps.
‘When was I ever anything but kind to him? But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said. ‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I? If he left then, I said, that ended it.
HAil holy Light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born, Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun, Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless infinite. Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing, Escap't the Stygian Pool, though long detain'd In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
New Yor I! Graveyard bristling with monuments and receptions for business purposes! Has my right hand lost its cunning? It can't remember how to spell your name: unless I scowl, my keyboard won't offer the K: it throws up I instead.
I was actually born on your streets, Lexington at 76th. So was my mother.
Let Elizur rejoice with the Partridge, who is a prisoner of state and is proud of his keepers.
For I am not without authority in my jeopardy, which I derive inevitably from the glory of the name of the Lord.
Let Shedeur rejoice with Pyrausta, who dwelleth in a medium of fire, which God hath adapted for him.
For I bless God whose name is Jealous—and there is a zeal to deliver us from everlasting burnings.
Let Shelumiel rejoice with Olor, who is of a goodly savour, and the very look of him harmonizes the mind.
For my existimation is good even amongst the slanderers and my memory shall arise for a sweet savour unto the Lord.
Let Jael rejoice with the Plover, who whistles for his live, and foils the marksmen and their guns.
For I bless the prince of peace and pray that all the guns may be nail’d up, save such [as] are for the rejoicing days.
Cook was a captain of the Admiralty When sea-captains had the evil eye, Or should have, what with beating krakens off And casting nativities of ships; Cook was a captain of the powder-days When captains, you might have said, if you had been Fixed by their glittering stare, half-down the side,
The women were divided between regrets for the homes they had left and fear of the deserts and savages before them. —Francis Parkman nothing but this continent intent on its dismay—
Uncles who burst on childhood, from the East, Blown from air, like bearded ghosts arriving, And are, indeed, a kind of guessed-at ghost Through mumbled names at dinner-tables moving,
Bearers of parrots, bonfires of blazing stones, Their pockets fat with riches out of reason, Meerschaum and sharks’-teeth, ropes of China coins, And weeds and seeds and berries blowzed with poison—
for the eyes of the children, the last to melt, the last to vaporize, for the lingering eyes of the children, staring, the eyes of the children of buchenwald, of viet nam and johannesburg,
1 Come on, my partners in distress, My comrades through the wilderness, Who still your bodies feel; Awhile forget your griefs and fears, And look beyond this vale of tears To that celestial hill.
2 Beyond the bounds of time and space Look forward to that heavenly place, The saints’ secure abode; On faith’s strong eagle pinions rise, And force your passage to the skies, And scale the mount of God.
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