No Longer Mourn for Me
By William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan’
And mock you with me after I am gone.
Sweet Disorder
By Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction-
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher—
A cuff neglectful and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly—
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat—
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility—
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
Auld Lang Syne
by Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?
Cho.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’kindness yet
For auld lang syne!
And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I’ll be mine,
And we’ll tak a cup o’kindness yet
For auld lang syne!
We twa hae run about the braes
And pou’d the gowans fine,
But we’ve wandered monie a weary fit
Sin’ auld lang syne.
We two hae paidl’d in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin’ auld lang syne.
Because I Could Not Stop For Death
By Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Because I could not stop for death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
Ad I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ‘t is a centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
