Leaves glowing in the sun, zealous hum of bumblebees,
From afar, from somewhere beyond the river, echoes of lingering voices
And the unhurried sounds of a hammer gave joy not only to me.
Before the five senses were opened, and earlier than any beginning
They waited, ready, for all those who would call themselves mortals,
So that they might praise, as I do, life, that is, happiness.

'I never yet exactly could determine
Just how it is that the judicial ermine
Is kept so safely from predacious vermin.'

'It is not so, my friend: though in a garret
'Tis kept in camphor, and you often air it,
The vermin will get into it and wear it.'

An everywhere of silver,
With ropes of sand
To keep it from effacing
The track called land.

The winter is cold, Mnasidika. All is cold outside our bed. Rise, then, come with me, for I have lit a great fire with dead twigs and with split branches.

We will warm ourselves kneeling, all naked, our hair hanging upon our backs, and we will drink milk together from the same cup, and we will eat cakes with honey.

How gay and noisy is the flame! Art thou not too near? Thy skin becomes red. Let me kiss it wherever the fire has made it burning.

I walk by rule and measure, and incline
To neither side, but take an even line;
Fix'd in a single purpose and design.
With learning's happy gifts to celebrate,
To civilize and dignify the State;
Not leaguing with the discontented crew,
Nor with the proud and arbitrary few.

Children are snatch'd away sometimes,
To punish Parents for their Crimes.
Thy Mother's Merit was so great,
Heav'n hasten'd thy untimely Fate,
To make her Character complete.
Tho' many Virtues fill'd her Breast,
'Twas Resignation crown'd the rest.

This Pile thou seest built out of Flesh, not Stone,
Contains no shroud within, nor mouldring bone:
This bloodless Trunk is destitute of Tombe
Which may the Soul-fled Mansion enwombe.
This seeming Sepulchre (to tell the troth)
Is neither Tomb nor Body, and yet both.

When I am Dead, few Friends attend my Hearse,
And for a Monument, I leave my VERSE.

THROUGH one, years since hanged and forgot
Who stabbed backs by the Quarter,
Here lieth one who—while Time's stream
Runneth, as God hath taught her,
Bearing man's fame to men,—will have
His great name writ in water.

My name is Wheeler here I ly
Because I happend for to dy
life wheeld me in death wheeld me out
how strangely things are wheeld about.