44 ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS
When 1 Ham Fears That 1 May Cease to Be
WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has cleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactcry,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain ;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance ;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thcc more,,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink,
Keats
Red and White Roses
READ in these roses the sad story
Of my hard fate and your own glory.
In the white you may discover
The paleness of a fainting lover;
In the red the flames still feeding
On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding.
The white will tell you how I languish,
And the red express my anguish :
The white my innocence displaying?
The red my martyrdom betraying;
The frowns that on your brow resided,
Have those roses thus divided.
Oh ! let your smiles but clear the weather,
And then they both shall grow together, "
A poem with a bunch of ros&s
to a lady, by Thomas Carew
Do Not Leave Me Thus
A ktter written on papyrus in ike third century by a wldief* $on to hi$ mother
WHEN my father came to me, he did not give me an oboius or a
cloak or anything. All will laugh at me* ** His father is a
soldier," they will say, " and yet he gives him nothing/*
My father said, " When I get home I will send you everything/1
but he has sent me nothing. Why f
The mother of Valerius sent him a pair of girdles and a jar of oil,
and a basket of dainties, and 200 drachmae. Wherefore, I beg you,
mother, send to me. Do not leave me thus.