Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AGAINST THOUGHTS, by THOMAS FLATMAN Poet's Biography First Line: Intolerable racks! Last Line: Cramm'd in the quivers of my destiny. | ||||||||
I. INTOLERABLE racks! Distend my soul no more, Loud as the billows when they roar, More dreadful than the hideous thunder-cracks. Foes inappeasable, that slay My best contents, around me stand, Each like a Fury, with a torch in hand; And fright me from the hopes of one good day. II. When I seclude myself, and say How frolic will I be, Unfetter'd from my company I'll bathe me in felicity! In come these guests, Which Harpy-like defile my feasts: Oh the damn'd dialogues, the cursed talk 'Twixt us (my Thoughts) along a sullen walk. III. You, like the poisonous wine The gallants quaff To make 'em laugh, And yet at last endure From thence the tortures of a calenture, Fool me with feign'd refections, till I lie Stark raving in a Bedlam ecstasy. IV. Do I dread The starry Throne and Majesty Of that high God, Who batters kingdoms with an iron rod, And makes the mountains stagger with a nod? That sits upon the glorious Bow, Smiling at changes here below. These goad me to his grand tribunal, where They tell me I with horror must appear, And antedate amazements by grim fear. V. Would I descry Those happy souls' blest mansions 'bove the sky, Invisible by mortal eye, And in a noble speculation trace A journey to that shining place; Can I afford a sigh or two, Or breathe a wish that I might thither go: These clip my plumes, and chill my blazing love That, O, I cannot, cannot soar above. VI. The fire that shines In subterranean mines, The crystall'd streams, The sulphur rocks that glow upon The torrid banks of Phlegeton; Those sooty fiends which Nature keeps, Bolted and barr'd up in the deeps; Black caves, wide chasms, which who see confess Types of the pit, so deep, so bottomless! These mysteries, though I fain would not behold, You to my view unfold: Like an old Roman criminal, to the high Tarpeian Hill you force me up, that I May so be hurried headlong down, and die. VII. Mention not then The strength and faculties of men; Whose arts cannot expel These anguishes, this bosom-Hell. When down my aching head I lay, In hopes to slumber them away; Perchance I do beguile The tyranny awhile, One or two minutes, then they throng again, And reassault me with a trebled pain: Nay, though I sob in fetters, they Spare me not then; perplex me each sad day, And whom a very Turk would pity, slay. VIII. Hence, hence, my Jailors! Thoughts be gone, Let my tranquillities alone. Shall I embrace A crocodile, or place My choice affections on the fatal dart, That stabs me to the heart? I hate your curst proximity, Worse than the venom'd arrows-heads that be Cramm'd in the quivers of my Destiny. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A CHARACTER OF A BELLY-GOD; CATIUS AND HORACE by THOMAS FLATMAN A DIALOGUE; CLORIS AND PARTHENISSA by THOMAS FLATMAN A DIALOGUE; ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE by THOMAS FLATMAN A DOOMS-DAY THOUGHT by THOMAS FLATMAN A SONG ON NEW-YEAR'S DAY BEFORE THE KING, CAR. 2 by THOMAS FLATMAN A THOUGHT OF DEATH by THOMAS FLATMAN ADVICE TO AN OLD MAN OF SIXTY-THREE, ABOUT TO MARRY A GIRL OF SIXTEEN by THOMAS FLATMAN AN ELEGY ON THE EARL OF SANDWICH by THOMAS FLATMAN AN EPITAPH ON THE EARL OF SANDWICH by THOMAS FLATMAN AN EXPLANATION OF AN EMBLEM ENGRAVEN BY V.H. by THOMAS FLATMAN |
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