Vital spark of heav’nly flame! Quit, 0 quit this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying, O the pain, the bliss of dying! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life. Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister Spirit, come away! What is this absorbs me quite? Steals my senses, shuts my sight, […]
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
All folks who pretend to religion and grace, Allow there’s a HELL, but dispute of the place: But, if HELL may by logical rules be defined The place of the damned -I’ll tell you my mind. Wherever the damned do chiefly abound, Most certainly there is HELL to be found: Damned poets, damned critics, damned
Deprived of root, and branch and rind, Yet flowers I bear of every kind: And such is my prolific power, They bloom in less than half an hour; Yet standers-by may plainly see They get no nourishment from me. My head with giddiness goes round, And yet I firmly stand my ground: All over naked
Charming oysters I cry: My masters, come buy, So plump and so fresh, So sweet is their flesh, No Colchester oyster Is sweeter and moister: Your stomach they settle, And rouse up your mettle: They’ll make you a dad Of a lass or a lad; And madam your wife They’ll please to the life; Be
Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach Appearing, show’d the ruddy morn’s approach. Now Betty from her master’s bed had flown, And softly stole to discompose her own. The slip-shod ‘prentice from his master’s door Had par’d the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor. Now Moll had whirl’d her mop with dext’rous airs, Prepar’d to
Flee from the press, and dwell with soothfastness; Suffice thee thy good, though it be small; For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness, Press hath envy, and weal is blent o’er all, Savour no more than thee behove shall; Read well thyself, that other folk canst read; And truth thee shall deliver, it is no
Driving from my parent’s Home to Cochin last Friday Morning, I saw my mother, Beside me, Doze, open mouthed, her face Ashen like that Of a corpse and realized with pain That she thought away, and Looked but soon Put that thought away, and Looked out at young Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling Out
If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight —let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours. As my days pass in the crowded market of
It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be a smeared print: blurred lines and grey flecks blended with the paper; then, as you scan it, you see in the left-hand corner a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or spruce) emerging and, to the right, halfway
All the world’s a stage And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning
I went down to the river, I sat down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn’t, so I jumped in and sank. I came up once and hollered! I came up twice and cried! If that water hadn’t a-been so cold, I might’ve sunk and died. But it was Cold in the water!
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up Into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches in arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not
Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you, my motherland! Freedom from the burden of ages, bending your head Breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning call of the future Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith You fasten yourself in night stillness, Mistrusting the star that speaks of truth’s adventurous
I cannot remember my mother Only sometimes in the midst of my play A tune seems to hover over my playthings, The tune of some song that she used to Hum while rocking my cradle. I cannot remember my mother But when in the early autumn morning The smell of shiuli flowers floats in the