Classic Poem

Hark, plaintful ghosts! Infernal furies, hark
Unto my woes the hateful heav'ns do send:
The heav'ns conspired to make my vital spark
A wretched wrack, a glass of ruin's end.

Seeing, alas, so mighty powers bend
Their ireful shot against so weak a mark,
Come cave, become my grave; come death, and lend
Receipt to me within thy bosom dark.

For what is life to daily dying mind
Where, drawing breath, I suck the air of woe;
Where too much sight makes all the body blind,
And highest thoughts downward most headlong throw?
Thus then my form, and thus my state I find:
Death wrapped in flesh, to living grave assigned

*****

Like those sick folks, in whom strange humours flow,
Can taste no sweets, the sour only please;
So to my mind, while passions daily grow,
Whose fiery chains upon his freedom seize,
Joys strangers seem; I cannot bide their show,
Nor brook aught else but well-acquainted woe.
Bitter grief tastes me best, pain is my ease,
Sick to the death, still loving my disease.