English Poetry. Mary Robinson. Life. Мэри Робинсон.

Life


”What is this world?thy school, O misery!
”Our only lesson is to learn to suffer.” 

- YOUNG. 


LOVE, thou sportive fickle boy, 
Source of anguish, child of joy, 
Ever woundingever smiling, 
Soothing still, and still beguiling; 
What are all thy boasted treasures, 
Tender sorrows, transient pleasures? 
Anxious hopes, and jealous fears, 
LAUGHING HOURS, and MOURNING YEARS. 

What is FRIENDSHIP’S soothing name?
But a shad’wy, vap’rish flame; 
Fancy’s balm for ev’ry wound, 
Ever sought, but rarely found; 
What is BEAUTY ? but a flow’r, 
Blooming, fading in an hour; 
Deck’d with brightest tints at morn, 
At twilight with’ring on a thorn; 
Like the gentle Rose of spring, 
Chill’d by ev’ry zephyr’s wing, 
Ah! how soon its colour flies, 
Blushes, trembles, falls, and dies. 

What is YOUTH ? a smiling sorrow, 
Blithe to day, and sad to-morrow; 
Never fix’d, for ever ranging, 
Laughing, weeping, doating, changing; 
Wild, capricious, giddy, vain, 
Cloy’d with pleasure, nurs’d with pain; 
AGE steals on with wint’ry face, 
Ev’ry rapt’rous Hope to chase; 
Like a wither’d, sapless tree, 
Bow’d to chilling Fate’s decree; 
Strip’d of all its foliage gay, 
Drooping at the close of day; 
What of tedious Life remains? 
Keen regrets and cureless pains; 
Till DEATH appears, a welcome friend, 
To bid the scene of sorrow end.

Mary Robinson’s other poems:

Poems of other poets with the same name (Стихотворения других поэтов с таким же названием):

Samuel Coleridge (Сэмюэл Кольридж) Life (“As late I journey’d o’er the extensive plain”)

Charlotte Brontё (Шарлотта Бронте) Life (“LIFE, believe, is not a dream”)

Abraham Cowley (Абрахам Каули) Life (“Life’s a name”)

Anna Barbauld (Анна-Летиция Барбо) Life (“Life! I Know Not What Thou Art”)

Bryan Procter (Брайан Проктер) Life (“WE are born; we laugh; we weep”)

Francis Bacon (Фрэнсис Бэкон) Life (“THE world’s a bubble, and the life of man”)

Florence Coates (Флоренс Коутс) Life (“Before we knew thee thou wert with us; ay”)

Paul Dunbar (Пол Данбар) Life (“A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in”)

James Johnson (Джеймс Джонсон) Life (“Out of the infinite sea of eternity”)

Henry Van Dyke (Генри Ван Дайк) Life (“LET me but live my life from year to year”)