Puslapio vaizdai
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Ivy for my fillet band;
Blinding dog-wood in my hand;
Hemlock for my sherbet cull me,
And the prussic juice to lull me;
Swing me in the upas boughs,
Vampyre-fanned, when I carouse.

Too long shut in strait and few,
Thinly dieted on dew,

I will use the world, and sift it,
To a thousand humors shift it,
As you spin a cherry.

O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry!
O all you virtues, methods, mights,
Means, appliances, delights,

Reputed wrongs and braggart rights, Smug routine, and things allowed, Minorities, things under cloud!

Hither! take me, use me, fill me, Vein and artery, though ye kill me! God! I will not be an owl,

But sun me in the Capitol.

TO J. W.

SET not thy foot on graves:

Hear what wine and roses say

The mountain chase, the summer waves,

The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.

Set not thy foot on graves;

Nor seek to unwind the shroud

Which charitable Time

And Nature have allowed

To wrap the errors of a sage sublime.

Set not thy foot on graves:

Care not to strip the dead

Of his sad ornament,

His myrrh, and wine, and rings,

His sheet of lead,

And trophies buried:

Go, get them where he earned them when alive;

As resolutely dig or dive.

Life is too short to waste

In critic peep or cynic bark,
Quarrel or reprimand:

"Twill soon be dark;

Up, heed thine own aim, and

God speed the mark!

FATE.

THAT you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;

You must have also the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.

There is a melody born of melody,

Which melts the world into a sea:

Toil could never compass it;

Art its height could never hit;

It came never out of wit;

But a music music-born

Well may Jove and Juno scorn.

Thy beauty, if it lack the fire

Which drives me mad with sweet desire,

What boots it? what the soldier's mail,

Unless he conquer and prevail?

What all the goods thy pride which lift,

If thou pine for another's gift?

Alas! that one is born in blight,
Victim of perpetual slight:

When thou lookest on his face,

Thy heart saith, Brother, go thy ways! None shall ask thee what thou doest,

Or care a rush for what thou knowest, Or listen when thou repliest,

Or remember where thou liest,

Or how thy supper is sodden;'

And another is born

To make the sun forgotten.

Surely he carries a talisman

Under his tongue;

Broad are his shoulders and strong;

And his eye is scornful,

Threatening, and young.

I hold it of little matter

Whether your jewel be of pure water,
A rose diamond or a white,

But whether it dazzle me with light.

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