Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A PARANAETICALL, OR ADVISIVE VERSE, TO M. JOHN WICKS, by ROBERT HERRICK


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A PARANAETICALL, OR ADVISIVE VERSE, TO M. JOHN WICKS, by                 Poet's Biography
First Line: Is this a life, to break thy sleep?
Last Line: From whence there's never a return.
Variant Title(s): The Easy Life
Subject(s): Carpe Diem


Is this a life, to break thy sleep?
To rise as soon as day doth peep?
To tire thy patient Oxe or Asse
By noone, and let thy good dayes passe,
Not knowing This, that Jove decrees
Some mirth, t'adulce mans miseries?
No; 'tis a life, to have thine oyle,
Without extortion, from thy soyle:
Thy faithfull fields to yeeld thee Graine,
Although with some, yet little paine:
To have thy mind, and nuptiall bed,
With feares, and cares uncumbered:
A Pleasing Wife, that by thy side
Lies softly panting like a Bride.
This is to live, and to endeere
Those minutes, Time has lent us here.
Then, while Fates suffer, live thou free,
(As is that ayre that circles thee)
And crown thy temples too, and let
Thy servant, not thy own self, sweat,
To strut thy barnes with sheafs of Wheat.
Time steals away like to a stream,
And we glide hence away with them.
No sound recalls the houres once fled,
Or Roses, being withered:
Nor us (my Friend) when we are lost,
Like to a Deaw, or melted Frost.
Then live we mirthfull, while we should,
And turn the iron Age to Gold.
Let's feast, and frolick, sing, and play,
And thus lesse last, then live our Day.
Whose life with care is overcast,
That man's not said to live, but last:
Nor is't a life, seven yeares to tell,
But for to live that half seven well:
And that wee'l do; as men, who know,
Some few sands spent, we hence must go,
Both to be blended in the Urn,
From whence there's never a return.





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