"As certain also of your own poets have said"— (Acts 17.28) Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")— To Protus in his Tyranny: much health!
217 Ambition was my idol, which was broken Before the shrines of Sorrow and of Pleasure; And the two last have left me many a token O'er which reflection may be made at leisure: Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I've spoken, 'Time is, Time was, Time's past', a chymic treasure Is glittering youth, which I have spent betimes— My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.
If Heaven has into being deigned to call Thy light, O Liberty! to shine on all; Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray To earth distribute only partial day? Since no resisting cause from spirit flows Thy universal presence to oppose; No obstacles by Nature’s hand impressed, Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
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.
See, Winter comes to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad, with all his rising train— Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme, These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms! Congenial horrors, hail! With frequent foot, Pleas’d have I, in my cheerful morn of life, When nurs’d by careless solitude I liv’d And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, Pleas’d have I wander’d through your rough domain; Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure; Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst; Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew’d In the grim evening-sky. Thus pass’d the time, Till through the lucid chambers of the south
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,
Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare.— Confess. St. August. Earth, ocean, air, belovèd brotherhood! If our great Mother has imbued my soul With aught of natural piety to feel Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
When Learning’s triumph o’er her barb’rous foes First rear’d the stage, immortal Shakespear rose; Each change of many-colour’d life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin’d new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil’d after him in vain: His pow’rful strokes presiding Truth impress’d, And unresisted Passion storm’d the breast.
Then Jonson came, instructed from the school, To please in method, and invent by rule; His studious patience, and laborious art, By regular approach essay’d the heart; Cold Approbation gave the ling’ring bays, For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise.
There’s a truth limits man A truth prevents his going any farther The world is changing The world knows it’s changing Heavy is the sorrow of the day The old have the look of doom The young mistake their fate in that look That is truth
To the Memory of the Household It Describes This Poem is Dedicated by the Author
“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.” —Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I.ch. v.
“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of Storm.” EMERSON, The Snow Storm. The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.
If you refuse me once, and think again, I will complain. You are deceiv’d, love is no work of art, It must be got and born, Not made and worn, By every one that hath a heart.
Or do you think they more than once can die, Whom you deny? Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day, Like the old poets feign And tell the pain They met, but in the common way?
The spirit has infinite facets, but the body confiningly few sides. There is the left, the right, the back, the belly, and tempting in-betweens, northeasts and northwests, that tip the heart and soon pinch circulation in one or another arm. Yet we turn each time
I. Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
Do not despair of man, and do not scold him, Who are you that you should so lightly hold him? Are you not also a man, and in your heart Are there not warlike thoughts and fear and smart? Are you not also afraid and in fear cruel, Do you not think of yourself as usual, Faint for ambition, desire to be loved, Prick at a virtuous thought by beauty moved?
It’s a spring morning; sun pours in the window As I sit here drinking coffee, reading Augustine. And finding him, as always, newly minted From when I first encountered him in school. Today I’m overcome with astonishment At the way we girls denied all that was mean In those revered philosophers we studied; Who found us loathsome, loathsomely seductive;
Stand still, and I will read to thee A lecture, love, in love's philosophy. These three hours that we have spent, Walking here, two shadows went Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd. But, now the sun is just above our head, We do those shadows tread, And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd. So whilst our infant loves did grow, Disguises did, and shadows, flow From us, and our cares; but now 'tis not so. That love has not attain'd the high'st degree, Which is still diligent lest others see.
I A whim of Time, the general arbiter, Proclaims the love, instead of death, of friends. Under the domed sky and athletic sun Three stand naked: the new, bronzed German The communist clerk, and myself, being English.
Yet to unwind the travelled sphere twelve years Then two take arms, spring to a soldier's posture:
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