I am olde whan age doth apele,
Having a yong thing that litel setteth me by.
One such in a schire is too many, and fele
Other than trew be; beholde a cause why:
I may not as I might on my partye.
Therefor I am forsake! age, age, wo thou be!
Youth is a traitoure, her experiens at eye;
Oftentimes and many the blinde eteth many a flye!

The rays of the autumn moon
shine so clear,
you can even see
the shapes of
the red leaves as they fall

What, why didest thou wink whan thou a wyf toke?
Thou haddest never more need brodde to loke!
A man that wedeth a wife whan he winketh,
But he stare afterward, wonder me thinketh!

On the impermanence of life:
Autumn chrysanthemums —
while they're at their best
I'll make them my ornament —
for all I know
I may be gone before the flowers

And now in turn see Swinburne bent
Above his favourite instrument —
He strikes the trembling wire.
Let horn and flute at once be mute
Before the new lascivious lute,
Little man and great lyre —
I had him there! l-i-a-r!

To Belinda

I N Church the Prayer-Book, and the Fan display'd,
And solemn Curt'sies, shew the wily Maid;
At Plays the leering Looks and wanton Airs,
And Nods and Smiles, are fondly meant for Snares.
Alas! vain Charmer, you no Lovers get;
There you seem Hypocrite, and here Coquet.

Cast up a wreck by Fortune's tide,
The ebbing wave in this lone bay
Has left me by the ocean's side
Mouldering in sure and slow decay;
Love, Hope, Fame, Power, have past away
And with them Joy and Grief and Pride
I live but in my thoughts, and they
Are of the things that long have died!

Beneath this stone a poet's bones lie cold:
Innumerable odes he made — and sold —
Think, reader think, how many lies he told!

A GAINST a Woman's Wit, 'tis full as low,
Your Malice, as your Bravery to Show.

Some nights my mother would read to me from A Child's Garden of Verses , a strange world where children talked like grownups and had nannies and counterpanes and there were a lot of other things I'd never heard of. But I was learning to read, too, from the Dick and Jane books at school, another place that sometimes bewildered me — where everyone always smiled and was unbelievably polite, where there never seemed to be any kind of trouble at all.