The rivers run chill, The red sun is sinking, And I am grown old, And life is fast shrinking ;— Here's enow for sad thinking! ODE TO MELANCHOLY. COME, let us set our careful breasts, To aggravate the inward grief, True honour's dearth, affection's death, The world!-it is a wilderness, Where tears are hung on every tree; For thus my gloomy phantasy Makes all things weep with me! Come let us sit and watch the sky, And fancy clouds, where no clouds be; And make heav'n black with misery. Was born to pain our hearts the more Why shines the sun, except that he When all the earth is bright beside? Whilst man is made of his own grave, And fairest clouds but gilded rain! I saw my mother in her shroud, As creatures doom'd to fail! Why do buds ope, except to die? Ay, let us think of Him a while, Hath writ the common doom. How wide the yew tree spreads its gloom, And o'er the dead lets fall its dew, As if in tears it wept for them, That sleep around its stem How cold the dead have made these stones, With natural drops kept ever wet! Lo! here the best, the worst, the world Doth now remember or forget, Are in one common ruin hurl'd, And love and hate are calmly met ; The loveliest eyes that ever shone, The fairest hands, and locks of jet. Is't not enough to vex our souls, Our hearts upon a violet ? Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet; And, sometimes, at their swift decay Beforehand we must fret: O clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine, And do not take my tears amiss ; |