'He who knows What life and de… Chapman. He who knows what life and death i… Walks superior to fate. Every word that Fortune saith is

My thoughts are like fleas, Eternally skipping. I try as I please To prevent their slipping, To probe them for more meant

You may think my life is quiet. I find it full of change, An ever-varied diet, As piquant as ’tis strange. Wild thoughts are always flying,

Oh, my youth was hot and eager, And my heart was burning, burning, And the present joy seemed meagre, Dwarfed by that perpetual yearning… I was always madly asking

I’ve had a few diseases, And trifled with despair, Tried failure which displeases, And coquetted with care. But through the stormy weather

Who cares, Though age oppress, And griefs distress, And the long, long day Rolls slow away

Imagination plays me most intolera… To enumerate them all would be unb… Just a trifle bids them gather and… And they tease me and torment me m… Tricks of strange, disordered acti…

The idle wind blows all the day. I wish it blew my care away. The idle wind blows all day long And weaves a burden to my song Upon the melancholy flight

I like to read confessions As lengthy as Rousseau’s, With all their slow processions Of innumerable woes. I revel in Cellini,

The passage of dead leaves in spri… Is like the aged vanishing. Amid the bustle and delight Of beauty thronging sound and sigh… Their lengthened course we hardly…

Hist! Zop! The world is all awry. Think that you can mend it? Take a turn and try. Virtue gets a fall or two,

I’m writing comedy again, The daintiest pleasure known to me… Unless a daintier might be To watch your acted comedy: The airy ladies gaily dressed,

When I was little, My life was half fear. My nerves were as brittle As nature may bear. Shapes monstrous would follow

A bit of metaphysics or a psycholo… Will sit upon my breast all day an… scratch. Now isn’t it a pity that… I really have no liking for abstru… I prefer to laugh in sunshine and…

I had visited her often, Long had sought, with vain endeavo… Her obdurate heart to soften; But she answered, ‘never, never.’ Then it softened and ran widely,