Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE ANSWER by GEORGE HERBERT

Poet Analysis

First Line: MY COMFORTS DROP AND MELT AWAY LIKE SNOW
Last Line: WHICH THEY THAT KNOW THE REST, KNOW MORE THEN I.

MY comforts drop and melt away like snow:
I shake my head, and all the thoughts and ends,
Which my fierce youth did bandie, fall and flow
Like leaves about me, or like summer-friends,
Flyes of estates and sunne-shine. But, to all
Who think me eager, hot, and undertaking,
But in my prosecutions slack and small;
As a young exhalation, newly waking,
Scorns his first bed of dirt, and means the sky;
But, cooling by the way, grows pursie and slow,
And settling to a cloud, doth live and die
In that dark state of tears: to all, that so
Show me, and set me, I have one reply,
Which they that know the rest, know more then I.



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