Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewst, Now is the time that face should form another, Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity? Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time. But if thou live rememb'rd not to be, Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
A little black thing among the snow, Crying ''weep! 'weep!' in notes of woe! 'Where are thy father & mother? say?' 'They are both gone up to the church to pray.
'Because I was happy upon the heath, 'And smil'd among the winter's snow, 'They cloth'd me in the clothes of death, 'And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
'And because I am happy & dance & sing, 'They think they have done me no injury, 'And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King, 'Who make up a heaven of our misery.'
Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality!
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea?
Only the Blessed of Lethe's dews May stoop to drink. And yet, Were their Elysium mine to lose, Could I, sans all repining, choose Life's sorrows to forget?
Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know'st thy estimate. The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing: My bonds in thee are all determinate. For how do I hold thee but by thy granting, And for that riches where is my deserving? The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, And so my patent back again is swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgement making. Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter: In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 