To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred: Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
I I weep for Adonais—he is dead! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me Died Adonais; till the Future dares Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity!"
II Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, When thy Son lay, pierc'd by the shaft which flies In darkness? where was lorn Urania
Most happy letters, fram'd by skilful trade, With which that happy name was first design'd: The which three times thrice happy hath me made, With gifts of body, fortune, and of mind. The first my being to me gave by kind, From mother's womb deriv'd by due descent, The second is my sovereign Queen most kind, That honour and large richesse to me lent.
My sister! my sweet sister! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the same A lov'd regret which I would not resign. There yet are two things in my destiny— A world to roam through, and a home with thee.
I first discovered what was killing these men. I had three sons who worked with their father in the tunnel: Cecil, aged 23, Owen, aged 21, Shirley, aged 17. They used to work in a coal mine, not steady work for the mines were not going much of the time. A power Co. foreman learned that we made home brew, he formed a habit of dropping in evenings to drink, persuading the boys and my husband —
To the Priest, on Observing how most Men mistake their own Talents When beasts could speak (the learned say, They still can do so ev'ry day), It seems, they had religion then, As much as now we find in men.
—Was it for this That one, the fairest of all Rivers, lov'd To blend his murmurs with my Nurse's song, And from his alder shades and rocky falls, And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice That flow'd along my dreams? For this, didst Thou, O Derwent! travelling over the green Plains Near my 'sweet Birthplace', didst thou, beauteous Stream
AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD Wherein, by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay of this whole world is represented THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone, Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one (For who is sure he hath a soul, unless It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
Stars from five wars, scars, Words filled with ice and fear, Nightflares and fogginess, and a studied regularity. Gon’ lay down my sword ’n’ shield— Down by the river side, down by the river side— Down by the river side...
How changed is here each spot man makes or fills! In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same; The village street its haunted mansion lacks, And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name, And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks— Are ye too changed, ye hills? See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays!
Your name is a—bird in my hand, a piece of ice on my tongue. The lips’ quick opening. Your name—four letters. A ball caught in flight, a silver bell in my mouth.
A stone thrown into a silent lake is—the sound of your name.
My hair is grey, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night, As men's have grown from sudden fears: My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose, For they have been a dungeon's spoil, And mine has been the fate of those
And this is what is left of youth! . . . There were two boys, who were bred up together, Shared the same bed, and fed at the same board; Each tried the other’s sport, from their first chase, Young hunters of the butterfly and bee, To when they followed the fleet hare, and tried The swiftness of the bird. They lay beside The silver trout stream, watching as the sun
Her arms around me—child— Around my head, hugging with her whole arms, Whole arms as if I were a loved and native rock, The apple in her hand—her apple and her father, and my nose pressed Hugely to the collar of her winter coat—. There in the photograph
Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned, Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring; And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank'd, and crown'd, A wild and giddy thing, And Health robust, from every care unbound, Come on the zephyr's wing, And cheer the toiling clown.
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