Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO T.H.L. by JOHN COWPER POWYS

First Line: WHEN I LAMENT HOW ALL MY DAYS ARE FAIR
Last Line: AND ASK NO HEAVEN, HAVING FOUND A FRIEND.
Subject(s): LIFE; PRAYER; SEA; STARS; TERROR; WIND; OCEAN;
When I lament how all my days are fair
To follow fortune's blind prefiguring,
How all the fairy blossoms of my Spring,
Burdened with summer noons, are bruised and slain,
When I accuse the process of the years,
With mortal breath upbraid the face of Time,
Publish earth's discords in discordant rhyme,
Seek my sole music in the fall of tears,
In all these woes my comfort is the same
That thou, sweet friend, art sad as well as I;
That mid a thousand ills we must not name,
That mid a thousand ills we cannot end,
At least together we can mock the sky,
And ask no Heaven, having found a friend.



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