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Though I am young, and cannot tell Either what Death or Love is well, Yet I have heard they both bear darts, And both do aim at human hearts. And then again, I have been told Love wounds with heat, as Death with cold; So that I fear they do but bring Extremes to touch, and mean one thing. As in a ruin we it call One thing to be blown up, or fall; Or to our end like way may have By a flash of lightning, or a wave; So Love’s inflamèd shaft or brand May kill as soon as Death’s cold hand; Except Love’s fires the virtue have To fright the frost out of the grave.

Though some saith that youth ruleth me, I trust in age to tarry. God and my right and my duty, From them I shall never vary, Though some say that youth ruleth me. I pray you all that aged be, How well did ye your youth carry? I think some worse, of each degree: Therein a wager lay dare I, Though some saith that youth ruleth me. Pastimes of youth sometime among, None can say but necessary. I hurt no man, I do no wrong, I love true where I did marry, Though some saith that youth ruleth me. Then soon discuss that hence we must. Pray we to God and Saint Mary That all amend, and here an end, Thus saith the king, the eighth Harry, Though some saith that youth ruleth me.

Though that men do call it dotage, Who loveth not wanteth courage; And whosoever may love get, From Venus sure he must it fet Or else from her which is her heir, And she to him must seem most fair. With eye and mind doth both agree. There is no boot: there must it be. The eye doth look and represent, But mind afformeth with full consent. Thus am I fixed without grudge: Mine eye with heart doth me so judge. Love maintaineth all noble courage. Who love disdaineth is all of the village: Such lovers—though they take pain— It were pity they should obtain, For often times where they do sue They hinder lovers that would be true. For whoso loveth should love but once. Change whoso will, I will be none.

To George Herbert Aspiration's breath, millennial trance, two-pointed ladder propped in a void; busy buzzard claws, verbs on a leash, slow blush of brain damage on a plate. Stunned journey of dust. A holey sock. Grind of an afternoon's axles, abandoned juggernaut in a field; inhabited interval with a pencil stub, curved strips of silence: postbox for the inner ear. Tarantula's footstep, a weight of light: inadvertent sky in the skull. Wishbone couture: promiscuous secret, peepshow in the street. Paraphrase of planets. Ocean in a tablespoon. Ordinary in the ordinary: nothing come of anything, matter unpossessed.

Some things lock in competition, like an earthquake and a kiss. While a decision is waiting to be made, neither side of the argument progresses. The earthquake, though eager to prove its claim, shows valiant restraint; the kiss? It knows the power of bitten tongues. Such stand-offs as these precede most gains (stance of knowing too much and fearing too late). The tongues, shaking along with the house, say nothing shattering at all. With progress, not only earthquakes but kisses will be predicted. The last fine line between feeling and fact will choose a good point, and end. Flattery will continue to make us immortal in the difficult years between the first word and the lost. * In which Mary, herself a palette of grays, inhabitant of a universe void of color, gains access to the complete scientific story of what makes red red—and reads it.

That was the day your mesmerized went awol on the shore. Each star, you said, was the same star. Beneath our sunny beach blanket an anonymous moisture spread like fur. It’s getting dark and darker. Dusk is hard. Gossip travels worst when it’s low-contrast out; it stalls, and the air begins to crack. Droplets black as blood squeeze through fissures, making night. What came from above—the forestscan, the cornucump, the mar—came violently on our feet. Finally, when it was time to order, you pulled yourself up from the syntax we’d shared and beckoned for me to come. It’s just like rain, I said, as if to make amends. Every arm is the same arm, you replied, and took mine. * In which an unwitting traveler to a parallel universe, offered trum and toke all night, drinks himself out of his depth to drown the unknown source of his discomfort.

It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream, And times and things, as in that vision, seem Keeping along it their eternal stands,— Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam, The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands. Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong, As of a world left empty of its throng, And the void weighs on us; and then we wake, And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along Twixt villages, and think how we shall take Our own calm journey on for human sake.

There, Robert, you have kill'd that fly — , And should you thousand ages try The life you've taken to supply, You could not do it. You surely must have been devoid Of thought and sense, to have destroy'd A thing which no way you annoy'd — You'll one day rue it. Twas but a fly perhaps you'll say, That's born in April, dies in May; That does but just learn to display His wings one minute, And in the next is vanish'd quite. A bird devours it in his flight — Or come a cold blast in the night, There's no breath in it. The bird but seeks his proper food — And Providence, whose power endu'd That fly with life, when it thinks good, May justly take it. But you have no excuses for't — A life by Nature made so short, Less reason is that you for sport Should shorter make it. A fly a little thing you rate — But, Robert do not estimate A creature's pain by small or great; The greatest being Can have but fibres, nerves, and flesh, And these the smallest ones possess, Although their frame and structure less Escape our seeing.

I gave my thoughts a golden peach, A silver citron tree; They clustered dumbly out of reach And would not sing for me. I built my thoughts a roof of rush, A little byre beside; They left my music to the thrush And flew at eveningtide. I went my way and would not care If they should come and go; A thousand birds seemed up in air, My thoughts were singing so.

Coleridge received the Person from Porlock And ever after called him a curse, Then why did he hurry to let him in? He could have hid in the house. It was not right of Coleridge in fact it was wrong (But often we all do wrong) As the truth is I think he was already stuck With Kubla Khan. He was weeping and wailing: I am finished, finished, I shall never write another word of it, When along comes the Person from Porlock And takes the blame for it. It was not right, it was wrong, But often we all do wrong. * May we inquire the name of the Person from Porlock? Why, Porson, didn’t you know? He lived at the bottom of Porlock Hill So had a long way to go, He wasn’t much in the social sense Though his grandmother was a Warlock, One of the Rutlandshire ones I fancy And nothing to do with Porlock, And he lived at the bottom of the hill as I said And had a cat named Flo, And had a cat named Flo. I long for the Person from Porlock To bring my thoughts to an end, I am becoming impatient to see him I think of him as a friend, Often I look out of the window Often I run to the gate I think, He will come this evening, I think it is rather late. I am hungry to be interrupted For ever and ever amen O Person from Porlock come quickly And bring my thoughts to an end. * I felicitate the people who have a Person from Porlock To break up everything and throw it away Because then there will be nothing to keep them And they need not stay. * Why do they grumble so much? He comes like a benison They should be glad he has not forgotten them They might have had to go on. * These thoughts are depressing I know. They are depressing, I wish I was more cheerful, it is more pleasant, Also it is a duty, we should smile as well as submitting To the purpose of One Above who is experimenting With various mixtures of human character which goes best, All is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us. There I go again. Smile, smile, and get some work to do Then you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.