passion

Some inherit manly beauty,
Some come into worldly wealth;
Some have lofty sense of duty,
Others boast exultant health.
Though the pick may be confusing,
Health, wealth, charm or character,
If you had the chance of choosing
Which would you prefer?

I'm not sold on body beauty,
Though health I appreciate;
Character and sense of duty
I resign to Men of State.
I don't need a heap of money;
Oh I know I'm hard to please.
Though to you it may seem funny,
I want none of these.

Seest thou younder craggy Rock,
Whose Head o'er-looks the swelling Main,
Where never Shepherd fed his Flock,
Or careful Peasant sow'd his Grain.
No wholesome Herb grows on the same,
Or Bird of Day will on it rest;
'Tis Barren as the Hopeless Flame,
That scortches my tormented Breast.

Deep underneath a Cave does lie,
Th' entrance hid with dismal Yew,
Where Phebus never shew'd his Eye,
Or cheerful Day yet pierced through.

In that dark Melancholy Cell,

For one brief golden moment rare like wine,
The gracious city swept across the line;
Oblivious of the color of my skin,
Forgetting that I was an alien guest,
She bent to me, my hostile heart to win,
Caught me in passion to her pillowy breast;
The great, proud city, seized with a strange love,
Bowed down for one flame hour my pride to prove.

Life, come to me in no pale guise and ashen,
I care not for thee in such placid fashion!
I would share widely, Life,
In all thy joy and strife,
Would sound thy deeps and reach thy highest passion,
With thy delight and with thy suffering rife.

Whether I bide with thee in cot or palace,
I would drink deeply, Life, of thy great chalice,
Even to its bitter lees­
Yea, shrinking not from these,
Since out of bitterness come strength and solace
And wisdom is not won in slumberous ease.

How happy is he born or taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his highest skill;

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepar'd for death
Untied unto the world with care
Of princes' grace or vulgar breath;

Who envies none whom chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
The deepest wounds are given by praise,
By rule of state, but not of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;

Six bulls I saw as black as jet,
With crimsoned horns and amber eyes
That chewed their cud without a fret,
And swished to brush away the flies,
Unwitting their soon sacrifice.

It is the Corpus Christi fête;
Processions crowd the bannered ways;
Before the alters women wait,
While men unite in hymns of praise,
And children look with angel gaze.

The bulls know naught of holiness,
To pious pomp their eyes are blind;
Their brutish brains will never guess
The sordid passions of mankind:

DRINK of our Cup--of the red wine that burns in it,
All the wild shames that have crusted its mouth,
Passion that twists in it, Madness that churns in it,
Fever that yearns in it, Folly that turns in it,
Drink of our Cup! It is Love, it is Youth!

"Amorous valleys have travailed to breed in it,
Eden hath shaken one tree at its brim,
Syria scattered an infamous seed in it,
Paphos hath freed in it lovers, to bleed in it,
Foam from Armida hath rusted its rim!

Can I, my friend, with thee condole?--
Can I conceive the woes that try men,
When late repentance racks the soul
Ensnared into the toils of hymen?
Can I take part in such distress?--
Poor martyr,--most devoutly, "Yes!"
Thou weep'st because thy spouse has flown
To arms preferred before thine own;--
A faithless wife,--I grant the curse,--
And yet, my friend, it might be worse!
Just hear another's tale of sorrow,
And, in comparing, comfort borrow!

What! dost thou think thyself undone,

Remember that object we saw, dear soul,
In the sweetness of a summer morn:
At a bend of the path a loathsome carrion
On a bed with pebbles strewn,

With legs raised like a lustful woman,
Burning and sweating poisons,
It spread open, nonchalant and scornful,
Its belly, ripe with exhalations.

The sun shone onto the rotting heap,
As if to bring it to the boil,
And tender a hundredfold to vast Nature
All that together she had joined;

And the sky watched that superb carcass

IF once in love, you'll soon invention find
And not to cunning tricks and freaks be blind;
The youngest 'prentice, when he feels the dart,
Grows wondrous shrewd, and studies wily art.
This passion never, we perceive, remains
In want from paucity of scheming brains.
The god of hearts so well exerts his force,
That he receives his dues as things of course.
A bucking-tub, of which a tale is told,
Will prove the case, and this I'll now unfold;
Particulars I heard some days ago,
From one who seemed each circumstance to know.