The Timely Dew Of Sleep.

Nor Love Thy Life, Nor Hate; But What Thou Livest, Live Well; How Long, Or Short, Permit To Heaven.

Time Will Run Back And Fetch The Age Of Gold.

So Shall The World Go On, To Good Malignant, To Bad Men Benign, Under Her Own Weight Groaning.

The Oracles Are Dumb, No Voice Or Hideous Hum Runs Through The Arched Roof In Words Deceiving. Apollo From His Shrine Can No More Divine, With Hollow Shriek The Steep Of Delphos Leaving. No Nightly Trance Or Breathed Spell Inspires The Pale-eyed Priest From The Prophetic Cell.

Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise (that Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind) To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days; But The Fair Guerdon When We Hope To Find, And Think To Burst Out Into Sudden Blaze, Comes The Blind Fury With Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.