Poetry Archives

Heark, how she laughs aloud,
Although the world put on its shrowd:
Wept at by the fantastic crowd,
Who cry: one drop, let fall
From her, might save the universal ball.
            She laughs again
   At our ridiculous pain;
And at our merry misery
   She laughs, until she cry.
            Sages, forbear
   That ill-contrived tear,
            Although your fear
Doth barricado hope from your soft ear.
That which still makes her mirth to flow,
Is our sinister-handed woe,
Which downwards on its head doth go,
And, ere that it is sown, doth grow.
   This makes her spleen contract,
      And her just pleasure feast:
   For the unjustest act
      Is still the pleasant’st jest.