poem 6
Love and Life... A Song
All my past life is mine no more
The flying Hours are gone
Like transitory Dreams given o'er
Whose images are kept in Stone
By memory alone.
What ever is to come is not
How can it then be mine,
The present Moment's all my Lot
And that as fast as it is got
Phyllis is wholly thine.
Then talk not of Inconstancy
False hearts and broken Vows,
If I, by miracle can be
This live-long Minute true to thee
Tis all that heaven allows.
(Probably not the best known of the poems of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, (1647 - 1680). That laurel would surely go to "Ancient Person, for whom I, / All the flattering Youth defy;" beloved of all old romantics! He was a leading light in a group called the "court wits", and is regarded as one of the best lyricists of the century. Maybe his bawdy verses are better known but only represent a small side of his rich talent, manifested in a very short life)