Are you a glass of milk, rich and cold?
Or a stream flowing with mother of pearl?

Or a white ripple of the twilight time
Sweetly crossing the face of night?

Or a jar, colored and dewy
A honey jar for all who are hungry?

Or are you a cheek of fragrant lilies
Dozing over grass and fallen leaves?

Or are you silver, lightlike and supple?
Ah, the glow of my old enchantment!

What are you? A vessel of light
A blending of stars out of the dark

Oh, kiss of lilies pouring out clear
The honey of a perfumed evening

Are these the pope's grand tools?
Worshipful noddies! Who but blund'ring fools
 Would ever have forgot
To burn those letters that revealed their plot?
Or in an alehouse told that Godfrey's dead
Three days before he was discovered;
Leaving the silly world to call to mind
That common logic, They that hide can find?
 But see their master policy
  On Primrose Hill,
 Where their great enemy
 Like Saul upon Mount Gilboa doth lie,
Fall'n on his sword, as if he himself did kill.
 But oh, the infelicity!

Are these the honors they reserve for me,
Chains for the man who gave new worlds to Spain!
Rest here, my swelling heart! — O kings, O queens,
Patrons of monsters, and their progeny,
Authors of wrong, and slaves to fortune merely!
Why was I seated by my prince's side,
Honor'd, caress'd like some first peer of Spain?
Was it that I might fall most suddenly
From honor's summit to the sink of scandal?
'T is done, 't is done! — what madness is ambition!
What is there in that little breath of men,
Which they call Fame, that should induce the brave

There was an old person whose mirth,
Induced him to leap from the earth;
But in leaping too quick, he exclaimed, " I'm too sick
To leap any more from the earth."

On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey
Mortality, behold, and fear,
What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within this heap of stones,
Hence removed from beds of ease,
Dainty fare, and what might please,
Fretted roofs, and costly shows,
To a roof that flats the nose:
Which proclaims all flesh is grass;
How the world's fair glories pass;
That there is no trust in health,
In youth, in age, in greatness, wealth;
For if such could have reprieved
Those had been immortal lived.

. . . " are the horns of the hall on fire? "
Then Hnaef made answer, the battle-young king:
" This is no dawn from the East, nor flying dragon,
Nor fire burning the horns of this hall,
But men in armor; the eagle shall scream,
The gray wolf howl and the war-wood whistle,
Shield answer shaft. Now shines the moon
Through scudding cloud. Dire deeds are come
Bringing hard battle and bitter strife.
Awake, my warriors, seize your shields;
Fight like men in the front of battle;
Be bold of mood, be mindful of valor! "

Are all such off'rings, as are crusht, and bruis'd,
Forbid thy altar? may they not be us'd?
And must all broken things be set apart?
No, Lord: Thou wilt accept a broken heart.

1

If we no old historian's name
Authentique will admitt,
And thinke all said of friendship's fame
But poetry and wit:
Yet what's revered by minds so pure
Must be a bright Idea, sure.

2

But as our immortalitie
By inward sense we find,
Judging that if it could not be,
It would not be design'd:
So heare how could such copyes fall,
If there were no originall?

3

But if truth be in auncient song,

Back home on my mare I took my way,
Through hour upon hour of waning day,
Where thistles on windy ledges shook,
And aspen leaves quiver'd o'er the brook,
By slope and by level ambling on,
Till day with the sunken sun was gone,
And out in the west a sheet of light
Was lingering pale — pale in the night.

At last, as my mare came snorting near
My dwelling, where all things near were dear,
The apples were swung in darksome balls,
And roses hung dark beside the walls,
No cows were about the fields to low,

The victories of mind,
Are won for all mankind;
But war wastes what it wins,
Ends worse than it begins,
And is a game of woes,
Which nations always lose:
Though tyrant tyrant kill,
The slayer liveth still.