Category: Literature

Padraic Colum (1881-1972). Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922.

The Petition of Tom Dermody to the Three Fates in Council Sitting

By Thomas Dermody

RIGHT rigorous, and so forth! Humbled
By cares and mourning, tost and tumbled,
Before your Ladyships, Tom Fool,
Knowing above the rest you rule,
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To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summer's pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumns turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd!
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd;
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British poet. To me, fair friend, you never can be old (l. 1-14). . .

The Unabridged William Shakespeare, William George Clark and William Aldis Wright, eds. (1989) Running Press.
Continue reading To me, fair friend, you never can be old

Anonymous. 17th Century.

The Wife of Usher's Well

THERE lived a wife at Usher's well,
And a wealthy wife was she;
She had three stout and stalwart sons,
And sent them o'er the sea.

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