| |
| THE SHEPHERD’S brow, fronting forked lightning, owns | |
| The horror and the havoc and the glory | |
| Of it. Angels fall, they are towers, from heaven—a story | |
| Of just, majestical, and giant groans. | |
| But man—we, scaffold of score brittle bones; | 5 |
| Who breathe, from groundlong babyhood to hoary | |
| Age gasp; whose breath is our memento mori— | |
| What bass is our viol for tragic tones? | |
| He! Hand to mouth he lives, and voids with shame; | |
| And, blazoned in however bold the name, | 10 |
| Man Jack the man is, just; his mate a hussy. | |
| And I that die these deaths, that feed this flame, | |
| That … in smooth spoons spy life’s masque mirrored: tame | |
| My tempests there, my fire and fever fussy. | |
| |
| See Notes. |
| |
