01 02 03 Eleanor Greer: The Answer, by George Herbert 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

The Answer, by George Herbert

34
My comforts drop and melt away like snow :
I shake my head, and all the thoughts and ends,
Which my fierce youth did bandie, fall and flow
Like leaves about me, or like summer friends,
Flyes of estates and sunne-shine. But to all,
Who think me eager, hot, and undertaking,
But in my prosecutions slack and small ;
As a young exhalation, newly waking,
Scorns his first bed of dirt, and means the sky ;
But cooling by the way, grows pursie and slow,
And settling to a cloud, doth live and die
In that dark state of tears : to all, that so
Show me, and set me, I have one reply,
Which they that know the rest, know more then I.
35 36 37 38