< Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu
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WILLIAM (JOHNSON) CORY

Forsooth the present we must give To that which cannot pass away ;

All beauteous things for which we live By laws of time and space decay.

But O, the very reason why

I clasp them, is because they die.

��Heraclhus

'"jPHEY told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,

  • They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears

to shed.

I wept as I remember' d how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

��COVENTRY PATMORE 760. The Mairied Lover

\V7HY, having won her, do I woo?

    • Because her spirit's vestal grace

Provokes me always to pursue,

But, spirit-like, eludes embrace ; Because her womanhood is such

That, as on court-days subjects kiss The Queen's hand, yet so near a touch

Affirms no mean familiarness ;

�� �

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