POEMS NOT PRINTED AFTER 1647
Reading edition
Despair.
No, no, poor blasted Hope! Since I (with thee) have lost the scope Of all my joys, I will no more Vainly implore The unrelenting Destinies: He that can equally sustain The strong assaults of joy or pain, May safely laugh at their decrees. Despair, to thee I bow, 10Whose constancy disdains t' allow Those childish passions that destroy Our fickle joy; How cruel Fates so e'er appear, Their harmless anger I despise, And fix'd, can neither fall nor rise, Thrown below hope, but rais'd 'bove fear.
Despair.] Note here the skill and success of the use of the short—almost 'bob'—lines, and the In Memoriam arrangement of rhyme in the last half of each stanza.
The Picture.
Thou that both feel'st and dost admire The flames shot from a painted fire, Know Celia's image thou dost see: Not to herself more like is she. He that should both together view Would judge both pictures, or both true. But thus they differ: the best part Of Nature this is; that of Art.
The Picture.] The conceit wraps up the point of the epigram.
Opinion.
Whence took the diamond worth? the borrow'd rays That crystal wears, whence had they first their praise? Why should rude feet contemn the snow's chaste white, Which from the sun receives a sparkling light, Brighter than diamonds far, and by its birth Decks the green garment of the richer earth? Rivers than crystal clearer, when to ice Congeal'd, why do weak judgements so despise? Which, melting, show that to impartial sight 10Weeping than smiling crystal is more bright. But Fancy those first priz'd, and these did scorn, Taking their praise the other to adorn. Thus blind is human sight: opinion gave To their esteem a birth, to theirs a grave; Nor can our judgements with these clouds dispense, Since reason sees but with the eyes of sense.
Opinion.] As in The Dream, distinctly nervous stopped couplet.