THE RULE OF LIFE

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1. THE SAME, EXPANDED IF thou wouldst live unruffled by care, Let not the past torment thee e’er; If any loss thou hast to rue, Act as though thou wert born anew; Inquire the meaning of each day, What each day means itself will say; In thine own actions take thy pleasure, What others do, thou’lt duly treasure; Ne’er […]...
2. SAKONTALA WOULDST thou the blossoms of spring, as well as the fruits of The autumn, Wouldst thou what charms and delights, wouldst thou what Plenteously, feeds, Would thou include both Heaven and earth in one designation, All that is needed is done, when I Sakontala name. 1792....
3. THE CHRISTMAS-BOX THIS box, mine own sweet darling, thou wilt find With many a varied sweetmeat’s form supplied; The fruits are they of holy Christmas tide, But baked indeed, for children’s use design’d. I’d fain, in speeches sweet with skill combin’d, Poetic sweetmeats for the feast provide; But why in such frivolities confide? Perish the thought, with […]...
4. NIGHT SONG WHEN on thy pillow lying, Half listen, I implore, And at my lute’s soft sighing, Sleep on! what wouldst thou more? For at my lute’s soft sighing The stars their blessings pour On feelings never-dying; Sleep on! what wouldst thou more? Those feelings never-dying My spirit aid to soar From earthly conflicts trying; Sleep on! […]...
5. Olmecs rule The news is out, down Veracruz they found the evidence, Olmecs had the written word 400 years before Sumerians. A Chinese claim predates all that, but let it rest. Examine what it means to Mesoamericans! Okay, you Spanish thinking converts to the English tongue, Reflect a while, your reaching back predates the sum Of everything […]...
6. Rule Britannia When Britain first, at Heaven’s command, Arose from out the azure main; This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung this strain: “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves.” The nations, not so blest as thee, Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall: While thou shalt flourish great and […]...
7. The Proverbs Of Confucius Threefold is the march of time While the future slow advances, Like a dart the present glances, Silent stands the past sublime. No impatience e’er can speed him On his course if he delay; No alarm, no doubts impede him If he keep his onward way; No regrets, no magic numbers Wake the tranced one […]...
8. Love Turned to Hatred I will not love one minute more, I swear! No, not a minute! Not a sigh or tear Thou gett’st from me, or one kind look again, Though thou shouldst court me to ‘t, and wouldst begin. I will not think of thee but as men do Of debts and sins; and then I’ll curse […]...
9. The Two Guides Of Life – The Sublime And The Beautiful Two genii are there, from thy birth through weary life to guide thee; Ah, happy when, united both, they stand to aid beside thee? With gleesome play to cheer the path, the one comes blithe with beauty, And lighter, leaning on her arm, the destiny and duty. With jest and sweet discourse she goes unto […]...
10. In Maximum WOULDST thou be free? I think it not, indeed; But if thou wouldst, attend this simple rede: When quite contented }thou canst dine at home Thou shall be free when } And drink a small wine of the march of Rome; When thou canst see unmoved thy neighbour’s plate, And wear my threadbare toga in […]...
11. NEITHER THIS NOR THAT IF thou to be a slave shouldst will, Thou’lt get no pity, but fare ill; And if a master thou wouldst be, The world will view it angrily; And if in statu quo thou stay, That thou art but a fool, they’ll say. 1815.*...
12. The Rule of the A. J. C Come all ye bold trainers attend to my song, It’s a rule of the A. J. C. You mustn’t train ponies, for that’s very wrong By the rules of the A. J. C. You have to wear winkers when crossing the street, For fear that a pony you’d happen to meet If you hear one […]...
13. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
14. LOVER IN ALL SHAPES To be like a fish, Brisk and quick, is my wish; If thou cam’st with thy line. Thou wouldst soon make me thine. To be like a fish, Brisk and quick, is my wish. Oh, were I a steed! Thou wouldst love me indeed. Oh, were I a car Fit to bear thee afar! Oh, […]...
15. The Prohibition Take heed of loving me; At least remember I forbade it thee; Not that I shall repair my unthrifty waste Of breath and blood, upon thy sighs and tears, By being to thee then what to me thou wast; But so great joy our life at once outwears; Then, lest thy love by my death […]...
16. A Man In His Life A man doesn’t have time in his life To have time for everything. He doesn’t have seasons enough to have A season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes Was wrong about that. A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment, To laugh and cry with the same eyes, With the same hands to […]...
17. This Life Which Seems So Fair This Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air By sporting children’s breath, Who chase it everywhere And strive who can most motion it bequeath. And though it sometimes seem of its own might Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there, And firm to hover in […]...
18. Indeed, indeed, I cannot tell Indeed, indeed, I cannot tell, Though I ponder on it well, Which were easier to state, All my love or all my hate. Surely, surely, thou wilt trust me When I say thou dost disgust me. O, I hate thee with a hate That would fain annihilate; Yet sometimes against my will, My dear friend, […]...
19. A Psalm of Life WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust […]...
20. I would to heaven that I were so much clay I would to heaven that I were so much clay, As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling – Because at least the past were passed away – And for the future – (but I write this reeling, Having got drunk exceedingly today, So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling) I say – […]...
21. GIPSY SONG IN the drizzling mist, with the snow high-pil’d, In the Winter night, in the forest wild, I heard the wolves with their ravenous howl, I heard the screaming note of the owl: Wille wau wau wau! Wille wo wo wo! Wito Hu! I shot, one day, a cat in a ditch The dear black cat […]...
22. Life All in the dark we grope along, And if we go amiss We learn at least which path is wrong, And there is gain in this. We do not always win the race, By only running right, We have to tread the mountain’s base Before we reach its height. The Christs alone no errors made; […]...
23. The best days of my life What is it about Bryan Adams and his song ‘Summer of 69’? Why do the lyrics linger? Was it 90° in the shade and the harbinger of the end Of the golden weather, or the impending closure Of a glorious decade? He should have called it ‘The best days of my life’, it would have […]...
24. Life Let me but live my life from year to year, With forward face and unreluctant soul; Not hurrying to, nor turning from the goal; Not mourning for the things that disappear In the dim past, nor holding back in fear From what the future veils; but with a whole And happy heart, that pays its […]...
25. Sonnet X: Reason Reason, in faith thou art well serv’d, that still Wouldst brabbling be with sense and love in me: I rather wish’d thee climb the Muses’ hill, Or reach the fruit of Nature’s choicest tree, Or seek heav’n’s course, or heav’n’s inside to see: Why shouldst thou toil our thorny soil to till? Leave sense, and […]...
26. Human Life If dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom Swallow up life’s brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul […]...
27. BY THE RIVER WHEN by the broad stream thou dost dwell, Oft shallow is its sluggish flood; Then, when thy fields thou tendest well, It o’er them spreads its slime and mud. The ships descend ere daylight wanes, The prudent fisher upward goes; Round reef and rock ice casts its chains, And boys at will the pathway close. […]...
28. The Student's Serenade I have slept upon my couch, But my spirit did not rest, For the labours of the day Yet my weary soul opprest; And, before my dreaming eyes Still the learned volumes lay, And I could not close their leaves, And I could not turn away. But I oped my eyes at last, And I […]...
29. To Life O life with the sad seared face, I weary of seeing thee, And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace, And thy too-forced pleasantry! I know what thou would’st tell Of Death, Time, Destiny – I have known it long, and know, too, well What it all means for me. But canst thou not array […]...
30. Bird Of Hope Soar not too high, O bird of Hope! Because the skies are fair; The tempest may come on apace And overcome thee there. When far above the mountain tops Thou soarest, over all – If, then, the storm should press thee back, How great would be thy fall! And thou wouldst lie here at my […]...
31. For The One Who Would Not Take His Life In His Hands Athlete, virtuoso, Training for happiness, Bend arm and knee, and seek The body’s sharp distress, For pain is pleasure’s cost, Denial is route To speech before the millions Or personal with the flute. The ape and great Achilles, Heavy with their fate, Batter doors down, strike Small children at the gate, Driven by love to […]...
32. 488. Song-The Winter of Life BUT lately seen in gladsome green, The woods rejoic’d the day, Thro’ gentle showers, the laughing flowers In double pride were gay: But now our joys are fled On winter blasts awa; Yet maiden May, in rich array, Again shall bring them a’. But my white pow, nae kindly thowe Shall melt the snaws of […]...
33. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
34. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
35. Modern Love IV: All Other Joys of Life All other joys of life he strove to warm, And magnify, and catch them to his lip: But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, And gazed upon him sallow from the storm. Or if Delusion came, ’twas but to show The coming minute mock the one that went. Cold as a mountain in its […]...
36. The Witch's Life When I was a child There was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch. All day she peered from her second story Window From behind the wrinkled curtains And sometimes she would open the window And yell: Get out of my life! She had hair like kelp And a voice like […]...
37. THE COUNTRY LIFE TO THE HONOURED MR ENDYMION PORTER, GROOM OF THE BED-CHAMBER TO HIS MAJESTY Sweet country life, to such unknown, Whose lives are others’, not their own! But serving courts and cities, be Less happy, less enjoying thee. Thou never plough’st the ocean’s foam To seek and bring rough pepper home: Nor to the Eastern Ind […]...
38. Appeal Oh, I am very weary, Though tears no longer flow; My eyes are tires of weeping, My heart is sick of woe; My life is very lonely, My days pass heavily, I’m wearing of repining, Wilt thou not come to me? Oh, didst thou know my longings For thee, from day to day, My hopes, […]...
39. RULES FOR MONARCHS IF men are never their thoughts to employ, Take care to provide them a life full of joy; But if to some profit and use thou wouldst bend them, Take care to shear them, and then defend them. 1815.*...
40. For The One Who Would Take Man's Life In His Hands Tiger Christ unsheathed his sword, Threw it down, became a lamb. Swift spat upon the species, but Took two women to his heart. Samson who was strong as death Paid his strength to kiss a slut. Othello that stiff warrior Was broken by a woman’s heart. Troy burned for a sea-tax, also for Possession of […]...