I intended an Ode, / And it turned to a Sonnet.

Love comes unseen; we only see it go.

Time goes, you say? Ah, no! Alas, Time stays, we go.

Not as ours the books of old – Things that steam can stamp and fold; Not as ours the books of yore – Rows of type, and nothing more.

For I respectfully declineTo dignify the Serpentine,And make hors-d’oeuvres for fishes.

What ye have been ye still shall be, When we are dust the dust among, O yellow flowers!

Love comes unseen; we only see it go

Carry his body hence! Kings must have slaves: Kings climb to eminence, Over men’s graves: So this man’s eye is dim; Throw the earth over him!

Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour – let no night Seal thy sense in deathly slumber Till to delight Thou hast paid thy utmost blessing

And I wove the thing to a random rhyme, For the Rose is Beauty, the Gardener, Time.

For I respectfully decline To dignify the Serpentine, And make hors-d’oeuvres for fishes.

The ladies of St James’s! They’re painted to the eyes, Their white it stays for ever, Their red it never dies: But Phyllida, my Phyllida! Her colour comes and goes; It trembles to a lily,...

All passes. Art alone/ Enduring stays to us;/ The bust outlasts the throne

I intended an Ode, And it turned to a Sonnet.

Time goes, you say? Ah no! Alas, Time stays, we go

In merest prudence men should teach. That science ranks as monstrous things, Two pairs of upper limbs; so wings – E’en Angel’s wings! – are fictions.