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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WORLD by CHARLES COTTON

Poet Analysis

First Line: FIE! WHAT A WRETCHED WORLD IS THIS!
Last Line: WITH DEATH, THAT HOURLY WAITS FOR ME.
Subject(s): EARTH; WORLD;
I

FIE! What a wretched World is this!
Nothing but anguish, griefs, and fears,
Where, who does best, must do amiss,
Frailty the ruling power bears
In this our dismal vale of tears.

II

Oh! who would live, that could but die,
Die honestly, and as he should,
Since to contend with misery
Will do the wisest man no good,
Misfortune will not be withstood.

III

The most that helpless man can do
Towards the bett'ring his estate
Is but to barter woe for woe,
And he ev'n there attempts too late,
So absolute a Prince is Fate.

IV

But why do I of Fate complain?
Man might live happy, if not free,
And Fortune's shocks with ease sustain,
If Man would let him happy be:
Man is Man's foe, and Destiny.

V

And that rib Woman, though she be
But such a little little part;
Is yet a greater Fate than he,
And has the power, or the art
To break his peace; nay break his heart.

VI

Ah, glorious Flower, lovely piece
Of superfine refined clay,
Thou poison'st only with a kiss,
And dartest an auspicious ray
On him thou meanest to betray.

VII

These are the World, and these are they
That life does so unpleasant make,
Whom to avoid there is no way
But the wild desert straight to take,
And there to husband the last stake.

VIII

Fly to the empty deserts then,
For so you leave the World behind,
There's no World where there are no men,
And brutes more civil are, and kind,
Than Man whose reason passions blind.

IX

For should you take an hermitage,
Tho' you might 'scape from other wrongs,
Yet even there you bear the rage
Of venomous, and slanderous tongues,
Which to the innocent belongs.

X

Grant me then, Heav'n, a wilderness,
And there an endless Solitude,
Where though wolves howl, and serpents hiss,
Though dangerous, 'tis not half so rude
As the ungovern'd Multitude.

XI

And Solitude in a dark cave,
Where all things hushed, and silent be,
Resembleth so the quiet grave,
That there I would prepare to flee,
With Death, that hourly waits for me.



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