NATURE foreseeing that if thou wert gone, And we her younger children left alone, None could with virtue feed this beggar'd age, For with the heir is gone, and heritage, In pity longer lent us thee, that so Thou might'st lead mankind, and teach how to go; How to speak languages, to discourse how, How the created book of things to know, How with smooth cadence harsher verse to file, Within soft numbers to confine a stile, And lastly how to love a friend; for this Lesson, the crown of human actions is. Nor was't in pity to our state alone, She, as all do, reflected on her own, And gave thee longer breath, that our desire Might learn of thine her beauty to admire; Nor out of pity to thy youth, whose hearse Not to thyself, but to the universe Had shipwreck'd been; for thou hadst stood, being dead, Above the sphere of being pitied. Let then this thy redintegrated wreck Not irksome be, if only for our sake, For friendship is the greatest argument Moves us to be from angels here content, Yet one inducement more thy stay may plead, That nature hath so clean thy prison made. What though she pit thy skin? She only can Deface the woman in thee, not the man. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ANOTHER SONG WITHOUT WORDS by PAUL VERLAINE WINTER NIGHT by CH'IEN WEN OF LIANG A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 54 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THE NEW INN: A VISION OF BEAUTY by BEN JONSON SHILLIN' A DAY by RUDYARD KIPLING SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 93 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON [APRIL 6, 1862] by KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD |