'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

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

I’ve been a hopeless sinner, but… saint, Their bend of weary knees and thei… tortions long and faint, And the endless pricks of conscien…

O Robert Lee, you paladin, I wonder how my words would strike… I know the portrait might have bee… In many, many ways more like you. But you would not have had me plan

Of old our father’s God was real, Something they almost saw, Which kept them to a stern ideal And scourged them into awe. They walked the narrow path of rig…

When I was a little boy, I followed hope and slighted joy. Now my wit has larger scope, I clutch at joy and heed not hope. At least that doctrine I profess,

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…

I think about God. Yet I talk of small matters. Now isn’t it odd How my idle tongue chatters! Of quarrelsome neighbors,

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

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,

She fled me through the meadow, She fled me o’er the hill. With such a fling she fled, oh, She may be flying still. But doubtless she grew weary

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

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

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