Sir Walter Raleigh Poems

PASSIONS are liken'd best to floods and streams:
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;
So, when affection yields discourse, it seems
   The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
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Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
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Now what is Love, I pray thee, tell?
It is that fountain and that well
Where pleasure and repentance dwell;
It is, perhaps, the sauncing bell
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Even such is time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust,
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VERSE I

In a famed town of Caledonia's land,
A prosperous port contiguous to the strand,
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Attend my words, my gentle knave,
And you shall learn from me
How boys at dinner may behave
With due propriety.
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Our great work, the Otia Merseiana,
Edited by learned Mister Sampson,
And supported by Professor Woodward,
Is financed by numerous Bogus Meetings
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If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
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Your dog is not a dog of grace;
He does not wag the tail or beg;
He bit Miss Dickson in the face;
He bit a Bailie in the leg.
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