Thomas Love Peacock

Oui, pour jamais
Chassons l’image
De la volage
Que j’adorais. PARNY. Matilda, farewell! Fate has doom’d us to part,
But the prospect occasions no pang to my heart;
No longer is love with my reason at strife,
Though once thou wert dearer, far dearer than life.

I.

Ille Ego

Oh! list to me: for I’m about
To catch the fire of Chaucer,
And spin in doleful measure out
The tale of Johnny Raw, sir;

Who, bent upon a desperate plan
To make the people stare,
Set off full speed for Hindoostan
Upon Old Poulter’s mare.

The whit’ning ground
In frost is bound;
The snow is swiftly falling;
While coldly blows the northern breeze,
And whistles through the leafless trees,
In hollow sounds appalling.

On this cold plain,
Now reach’d with pain,
Once stood my father’s dwelling:
Where smiling pleasure once was found,
Now desolation frowns around,
And wintry blasts are yelling.

Hope’s visions wild

The day has pass’d in storms, though not unmix’d
With transitory calm. The western clouds,
Dissolving slow, unveil the glorious sun,
Majestic in decline. The wat’ry east
Glows with the many-tinted arch of Heav’n.
We hail it as a pledge that brighter skies
Shall bless the coming morn. Thus rolls the day,
The short dark day of life; with tempests thus,

While those bewitching hands combine,
With matchless grace, the silken line,
They also weave, with gentle art,
Those stronger nets that bind the heart.

But soon all earthly things decay:
That net in time must wear away:
E’en Beauty’s silken meshes gay
No lasting hold can take:

But Beauty, Virtue, Sense, combin’d,
(And all these charms in thee are join’d)
Can throw that net upon the mind,
No human art can e’er unbind,
No human pow’r can break.

I dug, beneath the cypress shade,
What well might seem an elfin's grave;
And every pledge in earth I laid,
That erst thy false affection gave.

I pressed them down the sod beneath;
I placed one mossy stone above;
And twined the rose's fading wreath
Around the sepulchre of love.

Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead,
Ere yet the evening sun was set:
But years shall see the cypress spread,
Immutable as my regret.

Seamen three! What men be ye?
Gotham's three wise men we be.
Whither in your bowl so free?
To rake the moon from out the sea.
The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
And our ballast is old wine;
And your ballast is old wine.

Who art thou, so fast adrift?
I am he they call Old Care.
Here on board we will thee lift.
No: I may not enter there.
Wherefore so? 'Tis Jove's decree,
In a bowl Care may not be;

The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a host, and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.

On Dyfed's richest valley,
Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,
To furnish our carousing.
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;