A watch's supernumerary power

 As in a watch's fine machine

Though many artful springs are seen,

The added movements which declare

How full the moon, how old the year,

Derive their secondary pow'r

From that which simply points the hour.

 

-- Matthew Prior

Good riddance, phony demon UFO, Good riddance, infernal Pentagon!

 

 I felt him strike, and now I see him fly:

Curs'd demon! O for ever broken lie

Those fatal shafts, by which I inward bleed!

 

-- Matthew Prior 

 

 

You're wearing a mask while driving a Subaru, so you must vote Democrat

 Can syllogism set things right?

No, majors soon with minors fight:

Or, both in friendly consort joined,

The consequence limps false behind.

 

 -- Matthew Prior

Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves

 

 Have you mark'd a partridge quake,

Viewing the tow'ring falcon nigh?

She cuddles low behind the brake;

Nor would she stay, nor dares she fly.

-- Matthew Prior

We must both fortunes try, and bear our evils, wet or dry

 That people live and die, I knew,

An hour ago, as well as you;

And if fate spins us longer years,

Or is in haste to take the shears,

I know, we must both fortunes try,

And bear our evils, wet or dry.

-- Matthew Prior

A clown traverses the stage of the world, entertaining by pretending

With a grave look, in this odd equipage,

The clownish mimick traverses the stage.

 

-- Matthew Prior

The light of day deceives us

Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,

At night astronomers agree,

The evening has the day bely'd,

And Phillis is some forty-three.

-- Matthew Prior

He that laboreth to be merely a lame duck laboreth in vain

With endless pain this man pursues,

What, if he gain'd, he could not use:

And t'other fondly hopes to see

What never was, nor e'er shall be.

 

-- Matthew Prior

 

Daily bread, daily trouble

Cease, man of woman born! to hope relief

From daily trouble, and continued grief.

 

-- Matthew Prior

 

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.

 

-- Matthew 6:34

The peevish are wasps, easily offended and soon angry

Lay the rough paths of peevish nature ev'n,

And open in each heart a little heav'n.

-- Matthew Prior

He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding:

but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.

-- Proverbs 14:29 

A darling can be a plague

Sometimes my plague, sometimes my darling,

Kissing today, to-morrow snarling.

-- Matthew Prior

A coronavirus victim's prayer

If, while this wearied flesh draws fleeting breath,

Not satisfy'd with life, afraid of death,

It hap'ly be thy will, that I should know

Glimpse of delight, or pause from anxious woe;

From now, from instant now, great Sire, dispel

The clouds that press my soul.

-- Matthew Prior, "poet by accident" (1664-1721)

The mingled paint of living, good and ill together

 

 

'Tis in life as 'tis in painting,

Much may be right, yet much be wanting.

-- Matthew Prior

A pearl trampled by swine

 

 

If we see right, we see our woes;

Then what avails it to have eyes?

From ignorance our comfort flows,

The only wretched are the wise!

-- Matthew Prior

Larry Norman: Is Christ a myth? a madman's whim?

The happy whimsey you pursue,

Till you at length believe it true,

Caught by your own delusive art,

You fancy first, and then assert.

-- Matthew Prior

For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. 

-- Mark 11:23f.

 

Larry Norman - First Day In Church (Poem Spoken) - [Live]

The individual's last stand

 

Must the whole man, amazing thought! return

To the cold marble, or the contracted urn!

And never shall those particles agree, 

That were in life this individual he?

-- Matthew Prior

Suborned tears

 

[Her] artful bosom heaves dissembled sighs;

And tears suborn'd fall dropping from [her] eyes.

-- Matthew Prior

Like victory, happiness is fleeting

"Memento homo"

Invading fears repel my coward joy,

And ills foreseen the present bliss destroy.

-- Matthew Prior

On a few of the forms of murder

 

 

 

Hunger and thirst, or guns and swords,

Give the same death in different words:

To push this argument no further,

To starve a man in law is murther.

-- Matthew Prior

True love's inferiors

Αφροδίτη της Μήλου

Love's subalterns, a duteous band,

Like watchmen round their chief appear;

Each had his lanthorn in his hand,

And Venus, mask'd, brought up the rear.

-- Matthew Prior