People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when…
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.

My dress is silent when I tread the ground
Or stay at home or stir upon the waters.
Sometimes my trappings and the lofty air
Raise me above the dwelling-place of men,
And then the power of clouds carries me far
Above the people; and my ornaments
Loudly resound, send forth a melody
And clearly sing, when I am not in touch
With earth or water, but a flying spirit.

Gaul, the son of Morni, attended Lathmon into his own country, after his being defeated in Morven, as related in a preceding poem. He was kindly entertained by Nuäth, the father of Lathmon, and fell in love with his daughter Oithona. The lady was no less enamored of Gaul, and a day was fixed for their marriage. In the mean time Fingal, preparing for an expedition into the country of the Britons, sent for Gaul. He obeyed, and went; but not without promising to Oithona to return, it he survived the war, by a certain day.

Hypochondriacs
Spend the winter at the bottom of Florida and the summer on top of
the Adirondriacs.
You go to Paris and live on champagne wine and cognac
If you're dipsomognac.
If you're a manic-depressive
You don't go anywhere where you won't be cheered up, and people say
"There, there!" if your bills are excessive.
But you stick around and work day and night and night and day with
your nose to the sawmill.
If you're nawmill.

Note: Dipsomaniac -- alcoholic

Out of three or four in the room
One is always standing at the window.
Forced to see the injustice amongst the thorns,
The fires on the hills.

And people who left whole
Are brought home in the evening, like small change.

Out of three or four in the room
One is always standing at the window.
Hair dark above his thoughts.
Behind him, the words, wandering, without luggage,
Hearts without provision, prophecies without water
Big stones put there
Standing, closed like letters
With no addresses; and no one to receive them.

The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.

It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.
It has to face the men of the time and to meet
The women of the time. It has to think about war
And it has to find what will suffice. It has
To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage,
And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and

When I do this begin to apprehend,
My heart, my soul, and mind, begins to bend

To God-ward, and sincerely for to love
His son, his ways, his people, and to move

With brokenness of spirit after him
Who broken was, and killed for my sin.

Now is mine heart grown holy, now it cleaves
To Jesus Christ my Lord, and now it leaves

Those ways that wicked be; it mourns because
It can conform no more unto the laws

Of God, who loved me when I was vile,
And of sweet Jesus, who did reconcile

Now, if thou wouldst inherit righteousness,
And so sanctification possess

In body, soul, and spirit, then thou must
To Jesus fly, as one ungodly first;

And so by him crave pardon for thy sin
Which thou hast loved, and hast lived in;

For this cannot at all forgiven be,
For any righteousness that is in thee;

Because the best thou hast is filthy rags,
Profane, presumptuous, and most beastly brags

Of flesh and blood, which always cross doth lie
To God, to grace, and thy felicity.

Like to the rowling of an eye,
Or like a starre shott from the skye,
Or like a hand upon a clock,
Or like a wave upon a rock,
Or like a winde, or like a flame,
Or like false newes which people frame,
Even such is man, of equall stay,
Whose very growth leades to decay.
The eye is turn'd, the starre down bendeth
The hand doth steale, the wave descendeth,
The winde is spent, the flame unfir'd,
The newes disprov'd, man's life expir'd.


Like to an eye which sleepe doth chayne,
Or like a starre whose fall we fayne,

Dear Goddess of Corn, whom the ancients we know,
(Among other odd whims of those comical bodies,)
Adorn'd with somniferous poppies, to show,
Thou wert always a true Country-gentleman's Goddess.

Behold in his best, shooting-jacket, before thee,
An eloquent 'Squire, who most humbly beseeches,
Great Queen of the Mark-lane (if the thing doesn't bore thee),
Thou'lt read o'er the last of his -- never-last speeches.

Ah! Ceres, thou know'st not the slander and scorn
Now heap'd upon England's 'Squirearchy, so boasted;