@3A.@1 THE king looks well, red in its proper place The middle of the cheek, and his eye's round Black as a bit of night. @3B.@1 Yet men die suddenly: One sits upon a strong and rocky life, Watching a street of many opulent years, And Hope's his mason. Well! to-day do this, And so to-morrow; twenty hollow years Are stuffed with action:—lo! upon his head Drops a pin's point of time; tick! quoth the clock, And the grave snaps him. @3A.@1 Such things may have been; The crevice 'twixt two after-dinner minutes, The crack between a pair of syllables, May sometimes be a grave as deep as 'tis From noon to midnight in the hoop of time. But for this man, his life wears ever steel From which disease drops blunted. If indeed Death lay in the market-place, or were—but hush! See you the tremble of that myrtle bough? Does no one listen? @3B.@1 Nothing with a tongue: The grass is dumb since Midas, and no Æsop Translates the crow or hog. Within the myrtle Sits a hen-robin, trembling like a star, Over her brittle eggs. @3A.@1 Is it no more? @3B.@1 Nought: let her hatch. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT CASTERBRIDGE FAIR: 3. AFTER THE CLUB-DANCE by THOMAS HARDY THE THREE ENEMIES by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI SONNET: 29 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ROSAMOND: KING HENRY'S SONG by JOSEPH ADDISON MYRRHA by VITTORIO AMEDEO ALFIERI |