How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking one felt, or disliking? And to those words, what meaning attached, after all?

from To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf, 1927.

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, 
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ? 
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run ? 
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide 
Late school-boys and sour prentices, 
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride, 
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, 
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. 

Thy beams so reverend, and strong 
Why shouldst thou think ? 
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, 
But that I would not lose her sight so long. 
If her eyes have not blinded thine, 
Look, and to-morrow late tell me, 
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine 
Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me. 
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday, 
And thou shalt hear, “All here in one bed lay.” 

She’s all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ; 
Princes do but play us ; compared to this, 
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy. 
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, 
In that the world’s contracted thus ; 
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be 
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us. 
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ; 
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunnèd it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright;

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole,

When the night had veiled the pole:

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

/

William Blake, Songs of Experience

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