To My Noble Friend, Mr Charles Cotton

O thou that swing'st upon the waving ear
Of some well-filled oaten beard,
Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear
Dropped thee from heav'n, where now th' art reared,

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,
That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;
And, when the poppy works, thou dost retire
To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

Up with the day, the sun thou welcom'st then,
Sport'st in the gilt plats of his beams,
And all these merry days mak'st merry men,

This job’s the best I’ve done.’ He bent his head
Over the golden vessel that he’d wrought.
A bird was singing. But the craftsman’s thought
Is a forgotten language, lost and dead.

He sighed and stretch’d brown arms. His friend came in
And stood beside him in the morning sun.
The goldwork glitter’d.... ‘That’s the best I’ve done.
‘And now I’ve got a necklace to begin.’

This was at Gnossos, in the isle of Crete...
A girl was selling flowers along the street.

Noble be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Distinguisheth him
From all the beings
Unto us known.

Hail to the beings,
Unknown and glorious,
Whom we forebode!
From his example
Learn we to know them!

For unfeeling
Nature is ever:
On bad and on good
The sun alike shineth;
And on the wicked,
As on the best,
The moon and stars gleam.

Tempest and torrent,
Thunder and hail,
Roar on their path,
Seizing the while,
As they haste onward,
One after another.

Even so, fortune
Gropes 'mid the throng--

In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood,
Amazed with sorrow. Down the morning one
Far golden horn in the gold of trees and sun
Rang out; and held; and died.… She thought the wood
Grew quieter. Wing, and leaf, and pool of light
Forgot to dance. Dumb lay the unfalling stream;
Life one eternal instant rose in dream
Clear out of time, poised on a golden height.…

Till a swift terror broke the abrupt hour.
The gold waves purled amidst the green above her;
And a bird sang. With one sharp-taken breath,

Cold Virtue guard me, or I shall endure
From the next glance a double calenture
Of fire and lust! Two flames, two Semeles,
Dwell in those eyes, whose looser glowing rays
Would thaw the frozen Russian into lust,
And parch tile negro's hotter blood to dust.
Dart not your bllls of wild-fire here; go throw
Those flakes upon the eunuch's colder snow,
Till he in active blood do boil as high
As he that made him so in jealousy.
When that loose queen of love did dress her eyes
In the most taking flame to the prize

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.

The clouds are at play in the azure space,
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale.

'NEATH the shadow

Of these bushes,
On the meadow

Where the cooling water gushes.
Phoebus gave me, when a boy,
All life's fullness to enjoy.
So, in silence, as the God
Bade them with his sov'reign nod,
Sacred Muses train'd my days
To his praise.--
With the bright and silv'ry flood
Of Parnassus stirr'd my blood,
And the seal so pure and chaste
By them on my lips was placed.

With her modest pinions, see,
Philomel encircles me!
In these bushes, in yon grove,

Calls she to her sister-throng,

By no kind Augustus reared,
To no Medici endeared,
German art arose;
Fostering glory smiled not on her,
Ne'er with kingly smiles to sun her,
Did her blooms unclose.

No,--she went by monarchs slighted
Went unhonored, unrequited,
From high Frederick's throne;
Praise and pride be all the greater,
That man's genius did create her,
From man's worth alone.

Therefore, all from loftier mountains,
Purer wells and richer fountains,
Streams our poet-art;
So no rule to curb its rushing--
All the fuller flows it gushing

How can you stand it—looking at things?
For example, the geranium

out on the patio, the single pink
blossom in the sun? Or stand the sunlight
moving through it,

illuminating, holding the flower open like a high
clear note, an ecstatic
widening

which arrives, arrives. What
do you dowith it? While the shrubs and the lowest
overhanging leaves

lift slightly in the wind, the blossom

doesn't move. It's the object
of affection, and this is how
it hurts you:

by holding the note open—

A GASCON (being heard one day to swear,
That he'd possess'd a certain lovely fair,)
Was played a wily trick, and nicely served;
'Twas clear, from truth he shamefully had swerved:
But those who scandal propagate below,
Are prophets thought, and ev'ry action know;
While good, if spoken, scarcely is believed,
And must be viewed, or not for truth received.

THE dame, indeed, the Gascon only jeered,
And e'er denied herself when he appeared;
But when she met the wight, who sought to shine;
And called her angel, beauteous and divine,