Life

I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man’s ditch.

That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unaging intellect.

Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old.

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

The ripest peach is highest on the tree.

Faint heart never won fair lady! Nothing venture, nothing win— Blood is thick, but water’s thin— In for a penny, in for a pound 2 — It’s Love that makes the world go round!

For I’m not so old, and not so plain, And I’m quite prepared to marry again.

That Love is all there is, Is all we know of Love; It is enough, the freight should be Proportioned to the groove.

That it will never come again Is what makes life so sweet.

The only secret people keep Is Immortality.

My life closed twice before its close— It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.

I took one Draught of Life— I’ll tell you what I paid— Precisely an existence— The market price, they said. They weighed me, Dust by Dust— They balanced Film with Film, Then handed me my Being’s worth— A single Dram of Heaven!

The Dying, is a trifle, past But living, this include The dying multifold—without The Respite to be dead.

Love—is anterior to Life— Posterior—to Death— Initial of Creation, and The Exponent of Earth.

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me— The Carriage held but just Ourselves And Immortality.

Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the Culprit— Life!

Full lasting is the song, though he, The singer, passes.

Behold the life at ease; it drifts, The sharpened life commands its course.

The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I.

Yes, in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone .

Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes?

My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, From first youth tested up to extreme old age, Business could not make dull, nor passion wild: Who saw life steadily and saw it whole.