There’s a world
I once knew
Where all you had to do
Was believe,
Be pure, be true
To yourself and others
And the world
Will return the favour.
It will reveal
All its beauty,
Innocence,
And majestic light.
This world has a name
And it’s called Naive.

I opened my eyes
To find a world that is
Polluted with garbage,
Foul smelling
Toxic.
Give the world love and kindness
And it will give you hate and spite.
Be pure, be true
And the world will be corrupt,
It will use you
Until you have nothing left to give
And you become
Just as tainted as them.

I

If seasons all were summers,
And leaves would never fall,
And hopping casement-comers
Were foodless not at all,
And fragile folk might be here
That white winds bid depart;
Then one I used to see here
Would warm my wasted heart!

II

One frail, who, bravely tilling
Long hours in gripping gusts,
Was mastered by their chilling,
And now his ploughshare rusts.
So savage winter catches
The breath of limber things,
And what I love he snatches,
And what I love not, brings.

When I am dead, my dearest,
    Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
    Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
    With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
    And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
    I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
    Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
    That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
    And haply may forget.

To come back from the sweet South, to the North
  Where I was born, bred, look to die;
Come back to do my day's work in its day,
      Play out my play--
  Amen, amen, say I.

To see no more the country half my own,
  Nor hear the half familiar speech,
Amen, I say; I turn to that bleak North
      Whence I came forth--
  The South lies out of reach.

But when our swallows fly back to the South,
  To the sweet South, to the sweet South,
The tears may come again into my eyes
      On the old wise,
  And the sweet name to my mouth.

1449

I thought the Train would never come—
How slow the whistle sang—
I don’t believe a peevish Bird
So whimpered for the Spring—
I taught my Heart a hundred times
Precisely what to say—
Provoking Lover, when you came
Its Treatise flew away
To hide my strategy too late
To wiser be too soon—
For miseries so halcyon
The happiness atone—

Mingle with the genial bowl
The Rose, the ‘flow’ret’ of the Soul,
The Rose and Grape together quaff’d,
How doubly sweet will be the draught!
With Roses crown our jovial brows,
While every cheek with Laughter glows;
While Smiles and Songs, with Wine incite,
To wing our moments with Delight.
Rose by far the fairest birth,
Which Spring and Nature cull from Earth—
Rose whose sweetest perfume given,
Breathes our thoughts from Earth to Heaven.
Rose whom the Deities above,
From Jove to ****, dearly love,
When Cytherea’s blooming Boy,
Flies lightly through the dance of Joy,
With him the Graces then combine,
And rosy wreaths their locks entwine.
Then will I sing divinely crown’d,
With dusky leaves my temples bound—
Lyæus! in thy bowers of pleasure,
I’ll wake a wildly thrilling measure.
There will my gentle Girl and I,
Along the mazes sportive fly,
Will bend before thy potent throne—
Rose, Wine, and Beauty, all my own.