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To a Good Physician

But you can Life upon the Poor bestow,
Without return like Life's First Giver too;
Nay, like the Great Physician of the Soul,
Do good against our Wills, our Fates control;
In your self you, what is most hard to do,
By those, whom of your Faculty, we know,
All evils cure of your Profession too;
Pride's Tympany, Hydropic Avarice
Against which, few can give themselves Advice;
Unlike them, you make Patients ne'er endure,
Less Danger, Pain, from their Disease than Cure;
We both serve the same Saving Deity,
The God of Physic and of Poetry,

Opportunity

" But who art thou, with curious beauty graced,
O woman, stamped with some bright heavenly seal?
Why go thy feet on wings, and in such haste? "

" I am that maid whose secret few may steal,
Called Opportunity. I hasten by
Because my feet are treading on a wheel,

" Being more swift to run than birds to fly.
And rightly on my feet my wings I wear,
To blind the sight of those who track and spy;

" Rightly in front I hold my scattered hair
To veil my face, and down my breast to fall,
Lest men should know my name when I am there;

His Son

But twelve short years you lived, my son,
Just twelve short years, and then you died:
And now your life's brief course is run,
This grave a father's hopes doth hide.

Darkness

But that from slow dissolving pomps of dawn
No verity of slowly strengthening light
Early or late hath issued; but that the day,
Scarce-shown, relapses rather, self-withdrawn,
Back to the glooms of antenatal night,
For this, O human beings, mourn we may.

Robin Hood and the Butcher

But Robin he walkes in the g[reene] fforrest,
As merry as bird on boughe,
But he that feitches good Robins head,
Hee 'le find him game enoughe.

But Robine he walkes in the greene fforrest,
Vnder his trusty-tree;
Sayes, Hearken, hearken, my merrymen all,
What tydings is come to me.

The sheriffe he hath made a cry,
Hee 'le have my head i-wis;
But ere a tweluemonth come to an end

Sweet William's Ghost

" But plett a wand o bonnie birk
An lay it on my breast,
An drap a tear upon my grave,
An wiss my saul gude rest.

" But fair Marget, an rare Marget,
An Marget, o verity,
If eer ye loe another man,
Neer loe him as ye did me."

But up then crew the milk-white cock,
An up then crew the grey;
Her lover vanishd in the air,
An she gaed weepin away.

Immortality

But only to be memories of spiritual gate,
Letting us feel the difference from the real;
Are not limits the sooth to formulate
Theories thereof, simply our ruler to feel?
Basques of statuettes of eruptions long ago,
Of power in symmetry, marvel of thought
The crafts attempt, showing rare aspiration;
The museums of the ancient fine stones
For bowls and cups found historians
Sacred adorations, the numismatist hath shown,
But only to be memories of spiritual gate,
Letting us feel the difference from the real;

Cranach

But once upon a time
the oakleaves and the wild boars
Antonio Antonio
the old wound is bleeding.

We are in Silvertown
we have come here with a modest ambition
to know a little bit about the river
eating cheese and pickled onions on a terrace by the Thames.

Sweet Thames! the ferry glides across your bosom
like Leda's swan.
The factories ah slender graces
sly naked damsels nodding their downy plumes.