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William Blake
The daughters of Mne Seraphim led round their sunny flocks,
All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air.
To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day:
Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard;
And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew.
O life of this our spring! why fades the lotus of the water?
Why fade these children of the spring? born but to smile & fall.
Ah! Thel is like a watry bow, and like a parting cloud,
Like a reflection in a glass: like shadows in the water
Like dreams of infants, like a smile upon an infants face.
Like the doves voice, like transient day, like music in the air:
Ah! gentle may I lay me down and gentle rest my head.
'Twas here my summer paused
What ripeness after then
To other scene or other soul
My sentence had begun.
To winter to remove
With winter to abide
Go manacle your icicle
Against your Tropic Bride.
Like truthless dreams, so are my joys expir'd,
And past return are all my dandled days;
My love misled, and fancy quite retir'd--
Of all which pass'd the sorrow only stays.
My lost delights, now clean from sight of land,
Have left me all alone in unknown ways;
My mind to woe, my life in fortune's hand--
Of all which pass'd the sorrow only stays.
As in a country strange, without companion,
I only wail the wrong of death's delays,
Whose sweet spring spent, whose summer well-nigh done--
Of all which pass'd only the sorrow stays.
Whom care forewarns, ere age and winter cold,
To haste me hence to find my fortune's fold.
The mellow touch of music most doth wound
The soul, when it doth rather sigh, than sound.
Summer is shorter than any one --
Life is shorter than Summer --
Seventy Years is spent as quick
As an only Dollar --
Sorrow -- now -- is polite -- and stays --
See how well we spurn him --
Equally to abhor Delight --
Equally retain him --
oysters defeat me
and years inks little hopes
any rose without enemies
like instructions for melancholy
that make us perfectly happy
but whisper some hard word
just as we go
I suffer auspiciously as a rose
from unfinished pain
having made myself captain
I know who he is
but you see a man
dead of ordinary melancholy
so tender and melancholy
they cry like a child
on meeting with civil discourse
at the halfway house
but the poor souls at supper
fall out about saying grace
rain on the almanac
which I understand as a doubtful sign
wet ink
like a rain-drawn dog
a dog that did not answer
to the name melancholy
her physique is cut stone
a feast of disorders
I am a new cook
but will be nothing by morning
my heart must be
a missed supper in her diet
My clothes and I go forth
to see a play, or call
at places that understand wit
without money.
We are like ships that fetch
the queen of melancholy
for a lost card.
Here, my love, is
that rare vision,
how to buy ease of mind:
a hamper of melons.