Emotions and Feelings

Hence vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred!

Hence vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred!

Such strains as would have won the ear Of Pluto, to have quite set free His half-regain’d Eurydice. These delights, if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee, I mean to live.

And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique pageantry, Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson’s learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child, Warble his native wood-notes wild, And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out.

And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique pageantry, Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson’s learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child, Warble his native wood-notes wild, And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out.

And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth, and many a maid, Dancing in the checkered shade. And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday.

Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, Nods and becks and wreathed smiles.

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter, holding both his sides. Come, and trip it, as you go, On the light fantastic toe.

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter, holding both his sides. Come, and trip it, as you go, On the light fantastic toe.

So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Hence, loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn, ’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol’n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year.

Give me more love or more disdain; The torrid or the frozen zone: Bring equal ease unto my pain; The temperate affords me none.

Give me more love or more disdain; The torrid or the frozen zone: Bring equal ease unto my pain; The temperate affords me none.

Ask me no more if east or west The Phoenix builds her spicy nest; For unto you at last she flies, And in your fragrant bosom dies.

Ask me no more whither doth haste The nightingale when May is past; For in your sweet dividing throat She winters and keeps warm her note.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat.

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lack’d anything.

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lack’d anything.

Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing.

I struck the board, and cried, No more: I will abroad. What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free; free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn Before my tears did drown it; Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it?

I struck the board, and cried, No more: I will abroad. What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free; free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn Before my tears did drown it; Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it?

Call in thy death’s head there: tie up thy fears.