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Verses Written in a Garden

See how the pair of billing doves
With open murmurs own their loves;
And, heedless of censorious eyes,
Pursue their unpolluted joys;
No fears of future want molest
The downy quiet of their nest:
No int'rest join'd the happy pair,
Securely blest in Nature's care,
While her dictates they pursue;
For constancy is Nature too.
Can all the doctrine of the schools,
Our maxims, our religious rules,
Can learning to our lives ensure,
Virtue so bright, or bliss so pure?

Verses

Observe this Piece, which to our Sight does bring
The fittest Posture for the Swedish King;
(Encompass'd, as we think, with Armies round,
Tho' not express'd within this narrow Bound)
Who, whilst his warlike and extended Hand
Directs the foremost Ranks to Charge or Stand,
Reverts his Face, lest That, so Fair and Young,
Should call in doubt the Orders of his Tongue:
Whilst the excited, and embolden'd Rear
Such Youth beholding, and such Features there,
Devote their plainer Forms, and are asham'd to Fear.

Variations on the Word Love

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp

Variation On The Word Sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center

Valedictory Address to the D--n

John Alexander Frere, John,
When we were first acquent,
You lectured us as Freshmen
In the holy term of Lent;
But now you’re gettin’ bald, John,
Your end is drawing near,
And I think we’d better say "Goodbye,
John Alexander Frere."

John Alexander Frere, John,
How swiftly Time has flown!
The weeks that you refused us
Are now no more your own;
Tho’ Time was in your hand, John,
You lingered out the year,
That Grace might more abound unto
John Alexander Frere.

There’s young Monro of Trinity,

Uriconium an Ode

It lieth low near merry England's heart
Like a long-buried sin; and Englishmen
Forget that in its death their sires had part.
And, like a sin, Time lays it bare again
To tell of races wronged,
And ancient glories suddenly overcast,
And treasures flung to fire and rabble wrath.
If thou hast ever longed
To lift the gloomy curtain of Time Past,
And spy the secret things that Hades hath,
Here through this riven ground take such a view.
The dust, that fell unnoted as a dew,
Wrapped the dead city's face like mummy-cloth:

Upon The Thief

The thief, when he doth steal, thinks he doth gain;
Yet then the greatest loss he doth sustain.
Come, thief, tell me thy gains, but do not falter.
When summ'd, what comes it to more than the halter?
Perhaps, thou'lt say, The halter I defy;
So thou may'st say, yet by the halter die.
Thou'lt say, Then there's an end; no, pr'ythee, hold,
He was no friend of thine that thee so told.
Hear thou the Word of God, that will thee tell,
Without repentance thieves must go to hell.
But should it be as thy false prophet says,

Upon the Late Storm

[And Death of His Highness Ensuing the Same.]

We must resign! Heaven his great soul does claim
In storms, as loud as his immortal fame;
His dying groans, his last breath, shakes our isle,
And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile.
About his palace their broad roots are tossed
Into the air: So Romulus was lost.
New Rome in such a tempest missed her king,
And from obeying fell to worshipping.
On Oeta's top thus Hercules lay dead,
With ruined oaks and pines about him spread;
The poplar, too, whose bough he wont to wear

Upon A Penny Loaf

Thy price one penny is in time of plenty,
In famine doubled, 'tis from one to twenty.
Yea, no man knows what price on thee to set
When there is but one penny loaf to get.

Comparison.

This loaf's an emblem of the Word of God,
A thing of low esteem before the rod
Of famine smites the soul with fear of death,
But then it is our all, our life, our breath.

Unto This Last

They brought my fair love out upon a bier—
Out from the dwelling that her smile made sweet,
Out from the life that her life made complete,
Into the glitter of the garish street—
And no man wept, save I, for that dead dear.
And then the dark procession wound along,
Like a black serpent with a snow-white bird
Held in its fangs. I think God said a word
To death, as He in His chill heaven heard
Her voice so sweeter than His seraph’s song.

And so Death took away her flower-sweet breath