Life
by George Herbert (1593-1633)

I made a posy, while the day ran by:
“Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
                  My life within this band.”
But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
                  And withered in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart;
I took, without more thinking, in good part
                  Time’s gentle admonition;
Who did so sweetly death’s sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,
                  Yet sugaring the suspicion.

Farewell dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,
                  And after death for cures.
I follow straight without complaints or grief,
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if
                  It be as short as yours.

Views: 23

A Vision of Truth
by John Collings Squire (1884-1958)

As it fell upon a day
I made another garden, yea,
I got me flowers to strew the way
      Like to the summer’s rain;
And the chaffinth sings on the orchard bough
“Poor moralist, and what art thou?
But blessings on thy frosty pow
      And she shall rise again!”

Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore,
A highly respectable Chancellor,
A military casque he wore
      Half-hidden from the eye;
The robin redbreast and the wren,
The Pickwick, the Owl and the Waverley pen,
Heckety-peckety my black hen,
      He took her with a sigh.

The fight is o’er, the battle won,
And Furious Frank and fiery Hun,
Stole a pig and away he run
      And drew my snickersnee,
A gulf divides the west and worst
“Ho! Bring us wine to quench our thirst!”
We were the fist who ever burst
      Under the greenwood tree.

Little Bo-peep fell fast asleep
(She is a shepherdess of sheep),
Bid me to weep and I will weep,
      Thy tooth is not so keen,
Then up and spake Sir Patrick Spens
Who bought a fiddle for eighteenpenc
And reverently departed thence,
      His wife could eat no lean.

                  Epilogue
‘Twas roses, roses all the way
      Nor any drop to drink.

Views: 31

Return
by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680)

Absent from thee I languish still;
         Then ask me not, when I return?
The straying fool ’twill plainly kill
         To wish all day, all night to mourn.

Dear! from thine arms then let me fly,
         That my fantastic mind may prove
The torments it deserves to try
         That tears my fixed heart from my love.

When, wearied with a world of woe,
         To thy safe bosom I retire
Where love and peace and truth does flow,
         May I contented there expire,

Lest, once more wandering from that heaven,
         I fall on some base heart unblest,
Faithless to thee, false, unforgiven,
         And lose my everlasting rest.

Views: 25