Have pity, God, on one you cast down here
You granted some delight, more often care.
He weeps — for he is ever on the move —
Sometimes to greet, sometimes to part from love.
Always his enemy, the treacherous night
Has hoodwinked him, depriving him of light
And given him a bitter draught to drain
A draught of black despair time and again
For forty years he's suffered this distress
Still hurled from wilderness to wilderness.

Have I, this moment, led thee from the beach
Into the boat? now far beyond my reach!
Stand there a little while, and wave once more
That 'kerchief; but may none upon the shore
Dare think the fond salute was meant for him!
Dizzily on the plashing water swim
My heavy eyes, and sometimes can attain
Thy lovely form, which tears bear off again.
In vain have they now ceast; it now is gone
Too far for sight, and leaves me here alone.
O could I hear the creaking of the mast!
I curse it present, I regret it past.

Have I spoken too much or not enough of love?
Who can tell?

But we who do not drug ourselves with lies
Know, with how deep a pathos, that we have
Only the warmth and beauty of this life
Before the blankness of the unending gloom.
Here for a little while we see the sun
And smell the grape-vines on the terraced hills,
And sing and weep, fight, starve and feast, and love
Lips and soft breasts too sweet for innocence.
And in this little glow of mortal life—
Faint as one candle in a large cold room—

Have I not blest Thee? Then go forth; nor fear
Or spice, or fish, or fire, or close-stools here.
But with thy fair Fates leading thee, Go on
With thy most white Predestination.
Nor thinke these Ages that do hoarcely sing
The farting Tanner, and familiar King;
The dancing Frier, tatter'd in the bush;
Those monstrous lies of little Robin Rush:
Tom Chipperfeild, and pritty-lisping Ned,
That doted on a Maide of Gingerbred:
The flying Pilcher, and the frisking Dace,
With all the rabble of Tim-Trundells race,

Have I got dogs — pedigreeds and mutts —
So darn many people think I'm nuts!

Look at my silken-haired, spunky Spaniel;
He'd fight a lion — I named him Daniel.

There's my curly-tailed, flat-faced Pug —
He's funny-looking, so I named him Mug.

Then there's my Spitz, with her yappy bark —
She loves to swim, so I named her Mark.

My Boxer's the strongest of all my flock —
He's very tough, so I named him Jock.

That English Bulldog is also tough —
So short-tempered I called him Gruff.

Hate in the world's hand
Can carve and set its seal
Like the strong blast of sand
Which cuts into steel.

I have seen how the finger of hate
Can mar and mould
Faces burned passionate
And frozen cold.

Sorrowful faces worn
As stone with rain,
Faces writhing with scorn
And sullen with pain.

But you have a proud face
Which the world cannot harm,
You have turned the pain to a grace
And the scorn to a charm.

You have taken the arrows and slings
Which prick and bruise
And fashioned them into wings

Haste, haste my verses with your sharpened teeth
And seize my randy fundament beneath,
Which, swelling, lustful, both on heat and rank
Is made a balding corpse whose flesh is lank.
Behold its hairless brows and dribbling lips,
Its wrinkled cheeks on which a red eye drips,
All toothless save a pair of fangs that rot
Below two nostrils running o'er with snot;
Its foul-breathed, open lips with mucus flow
While ancient, useless tits like cobwebs show;
Beneath a sagging gut and scabby quim
Dry, skimpy buttocks wormy to the rim;

Hast thou seen the down i' th' air,
When wanton blasts have tossed it?
Or the ship on the sea,
When ruder winds have crossed it?
Hast thou marked the crocodile's weeping,
Or the fox's sleeping?
Or hast viewed the peacock in his pride,
Or the dove by his bride,
When he courts for his lechery?
Oh so fickle, oh so vain, oh so false, so false is she!

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy--young jackanapes!--show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"--Yes! white if we please;
Where the snowflakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close--you will see not a sign of a flake!

You kiss someone because you have come to the end of saying anything. You put your mouth up against someone else's as if to say, I have nothing more to say. I go on living but the words aren't there. They don't account for me. So, I slip out of language, I unzip myself out of the word bag, and tilt my head just beyond that confining dictionary of conventions and limitations, and that's where you come in. Your mouth is also retired for the moment, pushed up like a slit-open baked potato you put butter on and begin to eat.