Thomas Morton – The Songe

Drink and be merry, merry, merry boyes;

Let all your delight be in the Hymens ioyes;

Iô to Hymen, now the day is come,

About the merry Maypole take Roome.

    Make greene garlons, bring bottles out

    And fill sweet Nectar freely about.

    Uncover thy head and feare no harme

    For hers good liquor to keepe it warme.

Then drinke and be merry, &c.

Iô to Hymen, &c.

    Nectar is a thing assign’d

    By the Deities owne minde

    To cure the hart opprest with greife,

    And of good liquors is the cheife.

Then drinke, &c.

Iô to Hymen, &c.

    Give to the Mellancolly man

    A cup or two of ’t now and than;

    This physick’ will soone revive his bloud,

    And make him be of a merrier moode.

Then drinke, &c.

Iô to Hymen, &c.

    Give to the Nymphe thats free from scorne

    No Irish stuff nor Scotch over worne.

    Lasses in beaver coast come away,

    Yee shall be welcome to us night and day.

To drinke and be merry &c.

Jô to Hymen, &c

Thomas Morton – From New English Canaan

(The Authors Prologue)

If art and industry should doe as much

As Nature hath for Canaan, not such

Another place, for benefit and rest,

In all the universe can be possest.

The more we proove it by discovery,

The more delight each object to the eye

Procures; as if the elements had here

Bin reconcil’d, and pleas’d it should appeare

Like a faire virgin, longing to be sped

And meete her lover in a Nuptiall bed,

Deck’d in rich ornaments t’ advaunce her state

And excellence, being most fortunate

When most enjoy’d: so would our Canaan be

If well imploy’d by art and industry;

Whose offspring now, shewes that her fruitfull wombe,

Not being enjoy’d, is like a glorious tombe,

Admired things producing which there dye,

And ly fast bound in darck obscurity:

The worth of which, in each particuler,

Who list to know, this abstract will declare.

Edgar Allan Poe – To My Mother

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,

The angels, whispering to one another,

Can find, among their burning terms of love,

None so devotional as that of "Mother,"

Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-

You who are more than mother unto me,

And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you

In setting my Virginia's spirit free.

My mother- my own mother, who died early,

Was but the mother of myself; but you

Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,

And thus are dearer than the mother I knew

By that infinity with which my wife

Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

Edgar Allan Poe – Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then- in my childhood, in the dawn

Of a most stormy life- was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed me flying by,

From the thunder and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.

Edgar Allan Poe – Dreams

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!

My spirit not awakening, till the beam

Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.

Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,

'Twere better than the cold reality

Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,

And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,

A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.

But should it be- that dream eternally

Continuing- as dreams have been to me

In my young boyhood- should it thus be given,

'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.

For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright

I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light

And loveliness,- have left my very heart

In climes of my imagining, apart

From mine own home, with beings that have been

Of mine own thought- what more could I have seen?

'Twas once- and only once- and the wild hour

From my remembrance shall not pass- some power

Or spell had bound me- 'twas the chilly wind

Came o'er me in the night, and left behind

Its image on my spirit- or the moon

Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon

Too coldly- or the stars- howe'er it was

That dream was as that night-wind- let it pass.

I have been happy, tho' in a dream.

I have been happy- and I love the theme:

Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,

As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife

Of semblance with reality, which brings

To the delirious eye, more lovely things

Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!

Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.