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My TO-MORROW is but a flitting
Fancy of the brain;
God's TO-MORROW an angel sitting,
Ready for joy or pain.

My TO-MORROW has no soul,
Dead as yesterdays;
God's--a brimming silver bowl...

But one short night between my Love and me!
I watch the soft-shod dusk creep wistfully
Through the slow-moving curtains, pausing by
And shrouding with its spirit-fingers free...

Where art thou, beloved To-morrow?
When young and old, and strong and weak,
Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow,
Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, -
In thy place - ah! well-a-day!...

A Lorelei full fair she sits
Throned on the stream that dimly rolls;
Still, hope-thrilled, with her wild harp knits
To her from year to year men's souls.

They hear her harp, they hear her song,...

Well, then, another drink! Ben Jonson knows,
So do you, Michael Drayton, that to-morrow
I reach my fifty-second year. But hark ye,
To-morrow lacks two days of being a month -...

God knows all things -- but we
In darkness walk our ways;
We wonder what will be,
We ask the nights and days.

Their lips are sealed; at times
The bards, like prophets, see,...

How empty, dull, and useless is almost every day when it is spent! How few the traces it leaves behind it! How meaningless, how foolish those hours as they coursed by one after another!
...

I would that you should know,
Dear mother, that I love you -- love you so!
That I remember other days and years;
Remember childish joys and childish fears.
And this, because my baby's little hand...

O mother Venus, quit, I pray,
Your violent assailing!
The arts, forsooth, that fired my youth
At last are unavailing;
My blood runs cold, I'm getting old,
And all my powers are failing.
...

Since ye distemper and defile
Sweet Here by the measured mile,
Nor aught on jocund highways heed
Except the evidence of speed;
And bear about your dreadful task
Faces beshrouded 'neath a mask;...

On the Tragedy of Cato.


What do we see? Is Cato then become
A greater name in Britain than in Rome?
Does mankind now admire his virtues more,
Though Lucan, Horace, Virgil, wrote before?...

Just when the gentle hand of spring
Came fringing the trees with bud and leaf,
And when the blades the warm suns bring
Were given glad promise of golden sheaf;
Just when the birds began to sing...

Few words are best; I wish you well:
Bethel, I'm told, will soon be here;
Some morning walks along the Mall,
And evening friends, will end the year.

If in this interval, between...

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1693


Thrice, with a prophet's voice, and prophet's power,
The Muse was called in a poetic hour,
And insolently thrice the slighted maid
Dared to suspend her unregarded aid;...

FOR MANY YEARS DEPRIVED OF SIGHT.


They say the sun is shining
In all his splendor now,
And clouds in graceful drapery,
Are sailing to an fro.

That birds of brilliant plumage,...

Cyriack, this three years day these eys, though clear
To outward view, of blemish or of spot;
Bereft of light thir seeing have forgot,
Nor to thir idle orbs doth sight appear...

(On his Appearance at Sandringham)

Dear Mr. Dan Leno, -
This has been a great week
For Art -
One of the biggest weeks in fact
On record.
For at the beginning of the week, my dear Mr. Leno,...

OCT. 10, 1718 NINE IN THE MORNING

To you whose virtues, I must own
With shame, I have too lately known;
To you, by art and nature taught
To be the man I long have sought,...

How long, great Poet, shall thy sacred lays
Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise?
Can neither injuries of time, or age,
Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?
No so thy Ovid in his exile wrote,...

'Ah, friend! 'tis true--this truth you lovers know--
In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow,
In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes
Of hanging mountains, and of sloping greens:...