"Under the flag Of each his faction, they to battle bring Their embryon atoms."--MILTON. WELCOME joy, and welcome sorrow, Lethe's weed and Hermes' feather; Come to-day, and come to-morrow, I do love you both together! I love to mark sad faces in fair weather; And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder; Fair and foul I love together. Meadows sweet where flames are under, And a giggle at a wonder; Visage sage at pantomime; Funeral, and steeple-chime; Infant playing with a skull; Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull; Nightshade with the woodbine kissing; Serpents in red roses hissing; Cleopatra regal-dress'd With the aspic at her breast; Dancing music, music sad, Both together, sane and mad; Muses bright and muses pale; Sombre Saturn, Momus hale;-- Laugh and sigh, and laugh again; Oh the sweetness of the pain! Muses bright, and muses pale, Bare your faces of the veil; Let me see; and let me write Of the day, and of the night-- Both together:--let me slake All my thirst for sweet heart-ache! Let my bower be of yew, Interwreath'd with myrtles new; Pines and lime-trees full in bloom, And my couch a low grass-tomb. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS [MAY 9, 1775] by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT ON SIR PALMES FAIRBORNE'S TOMB, IN WESTERMINSTER ABBEY by JOHN DRYDEN EPIPSYCHIDION by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY IF WE KNEW; OR, BLESSINGS OF TO-DAY by MAY LOUISE RILEY SMITH THE TEARES OF THE MUSES by EDMUND SPENSER DIRGE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |