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Content, the false World's best disguise,
The search and faction of the Wise,
Is so abstruse and hid in night,
That, like that Fairy Red-cross Knight,
Who trech'rous Falshood for clear Truth had got,
Men think they have it when they have it not.

For Courts Content would gladly own,
But she ne're dwelt about a Throne:
And to be flatter'd, rich, and great,
Are things which do Mens senses cheat.
But grave Experience long since this did see,
Ambition and Content would ne're agree.

Some vainer would Content expect
From what their bright Out-sides reflect:
But sure Content is more Divine
Then to be digg'd from Rock or Mine:
And they that know her beauties will confess,
She needs no lustre from a glittering dress.

In Mirth some place her, but she scorns
Th'assistance of such crackling thorns,
Nor owes her self to such thin sport,
That is so sharp and yet so short:
And Painters tell us, they the same strokes place
To make a laughing and a weeping face.

Others there are that place Content
In Liberty from Government:
But who his Passions do deprave,
Though free from shackles is a slave.
Content and ******* differ onely then,
When we are chain'd by Vices, not by Men.

Some think the Camp Content does know,
And that she fits o'th' Victor's brow:
But in his Laurel there is seen
Often a Cypress-bow between.
Nor will Content herself in that place give,
Where Noise and Tumult and Destruction live.

But yet the most Discreet believe,
The Schools this Jewel do receive,
And thus far's true without dispute,
Knowledge is still the sweetest fruit.
But whil'st men seek for Truth they lose their Peace;
And who heaps Knowledge, Sorrow doth increase.

But now some sullen Hermite smiles,
And thinks he all the World beguiles,
And that his Cell and Dish contain
What all mankind wish for in vain.
But yet his Pleasure's follow'd with a Groan,
For man was never born to be alone.

Content her self best comprehends
Betwixt two souls, and they two friends,
Whose either joyes in both are fixed,
And multiply'd by being mixed:
Whose minds and interests are still the same;
Their Griefs, when once imparted, lose their name.

These far remov'd from all bold noise,
And (what is worse) all hollow joyes,
Who never had a mean design,
Whose flame is serious and divine,
And calm, and even, must contented be,
For they've both Union and Society.

Then, my Lucasia, we have
Whatever Love can give or crave;
With scorn or pity can survey
The Trifles which the most betray;
With innocence and perfect friendship fired,
By Vertue joyn'd, and by our Choice retired.

Whose Mirrours are the crystal Brooks,
Or else each others Hearts and Looks;
Who cannot wish for other things
Then Privacy and Friendship brings:
Whose thoughts and persons chang'd and mixt are one,
Enjoy Content, or else the World hath none.
The rain set early in tonight,
      The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
      And did its worst to vex the lake:
      I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
      She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
      Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
      Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
      And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
      And, last, she sat down by my side
      And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
      And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
      And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
      And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me—she
      Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
      From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
      And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
      Nor could tonight’s gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
      For love of her, and all in vain:
      So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
      Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
      Made my heart swell, and still it grew
      While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
      Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
      In one long yellow string I wound
      Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
      I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
      I warily oped her lids: again
      Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
      About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
      I propped her head up as before
      Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
      The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
      That all it scorned at once is fled,
      And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how
      Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
      And all night long we have not stirred,
      And yet God has not said a word!
Alif Imran Jan 2016
Light breeds shadow
In the form of fear
Consuming my immortality bit by bit
Creating a fiend
That guzzle up my happiness
Till the deepest core of my conscience
Remorselessly

Piecemeal
I am dying from my own trepidation
That agitates me

Whether to choose malevolence
That is sweet and warming
Or to choose benevolence
That is pain and suffering

Only the saint's heart will find its way
With the least tainted loopholes
Gifted by the brute to the paradise god has created

Destitute and feeling obselete
Failed to be absolute
I seclude myself
To a silence so deafening
And the temperature is dropping
While the loneliness is creeping

In fetal position
On this oversize king bed
With blue bed shed
But no blanket

Vainer, i thought.
Graff1980 May 2015
This is a disclaimer
Despite the fact
That I wish they would attack
To bite your fat ***
In zeal cause you might
Taste like veil
Zombies are not real

This is a disclaimer
Contrary to your belief
And desire to find relief
Angels do not exist
The spirit does not persist
And you waste much energy
In the pursuit of this
Fear of death

This is a disclaimer
Cause it’s lamer
By todays standard
To stand hard
Against the ignorance
And superstition
Than it is to sit around fishing
For fantasies
To comfort ourselves

This is a disclaimer
It would be far vainer
For me to say
That I know it all
I may
I have been wrong
All along
But I highly doubt it
Chrissy Oct 2014
At night, dreaming, not quite asleep I lay,
with head reclining, she came to me, narcissus-eyes shining for the fray,
I watched and listened with heart fit to break,
to which she came unto me straight,
betwixt and made the cheerless grate.

At last, she sat down by my side,
with her beauty which could not be denied,
with wine-red lips she confessed her love,
Drunk in thought aptly I could not have replied.

With vainer ties, a smile, my pride dissever,
I would give myself to her forever,
Unforsakened I, surprised, debated what to do,
My heart swell but still it grew,
That moment she was mine, and I hers
perfectly purely too.

For my heart grows, for you,
and my memory it lasts
for the last and first found thought of you.
This has a mixture of some of favourite lines from two different classic poems that I though I could keep the original meaning the same but change the secondary meaning to me,

Robert browning - porphyria's Lover, and I'm afraid I can't remember the name or the author of the second poem.
Daivik Mar 2021
Never by a house far from the school
I've learnt in these 17 years
Mine one's quite far
It's good though
Least they say so
Anyways

As bell rings to dismiss our tardy souls
I run and hop on the van
Bigger boys crack crude, sexist joke on the way back home
I sit silently
Revolting within
Wonder if they'll change
Whatever

The van stops unexpectedly, punctured,
On a crossroad, I'm on my own now
I walk towards an auto
He says 15
I sit in the one which costs a rupee less
Great savings!

In front of me is an old, poor man
Blind I presume(not the driver)
I wonder how he gets by
Somehow, definitely
I wonder how they live

Next me sits a boy of same age
Staring at the formulae
In preparation for his engineering exams
Since he was
I glance at his doodles
Sad
Whether he'll pass I wonder
Whether he wants to....
Nevertheless

I stop at the park near my home
That's the farthest they'll go
He checks the coins diligently and vrooms away
I amble
Beneath the summer sky
They cut a tree for the cable
They always do
I guess that's more important

Posters of manifestos
Of various parties lie round
Selling dreams
To those who'll buy

***** stenches as I near the street
A Mercedes goes by
I look round
Ignoring the girl begging
Like everyone else
'They'll buy drugs'
My mom says
'So what?'
I wonder some days
Anyhow

The lanky mad dog
Who's nobody's
Never will be anybody's
Welcomes me
As I open the gate

The rest of the day's less eventful
Internal turmoils
Seem vainer
In the daylight

We get by
Somehow
Hanging on a thread
Of unfulfilled dreams

Everyone strives
For something better
All don't get it
But..
Nonetheless
David Hilburn Mar 19
Letting wings
Tell the story...
Marvel at a sunshine's keep
When the bravery of simple and worldly...

Suppose a charity of kind
Vainer though kept, to these we mind
A house of resolve, a yearning time
To remind even the littlest hopes to find

Gages of wan, wonder in the eye?
Overt to liberty, the talk of somewhere
Favored for sense, surmisal in the lie
Of conscience to have, the least's we fare

Cope, sincerity, and honor
To tell a tale of such, might's we enthuse
Is a labor of love, the dread in songs and heirs
To come, with the ides of repose, we never lose

Without a voice to fly
A hap and demand of sustained go
Through the moments deed, a showing of cause all the while
Realms to its survival, the role of strength to hold...

A broken promise?
A seclusion of rights, to word and envy of a letter
Seen in the needs of virtue, we claim are a host of what sigh's
A means to an end, that has saved even a little more than better
A bird in hand, and two in the bush. Or is that three to meet, I can never render? Altruism's pie from a hopeless romantic...

— The End —