William Johnson Cory · Heraclitus

“They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,”

Comfort & remembrance
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.I wept as I remember’d how often you and IHad tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
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Author
William Johnson Cory
Work
Heraclitus
Found in
The Oxford Book of English Verse
Year
1858
Length
84 words
Source
Project Gutenberg eBook #66619

Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. William Johnson Cory died in 1892, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1858. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the Project Gutenberg edition linked here.

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Our revels now are ended. These our actors,As I foretold you, were all spirits andAre melted into air, into thin air:And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.
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Comfort & remembrance
Remember me when I am gone away,Gone far away into the silent land;When you can no more hold me by the hand,Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.Remember me when no more day by dayYou tell me of our future that you plann’d:Only remember me; you understandIt will be late to counsel then or pray.Yet if you should forget me for a whileAnd afterwards remember, do not grieve:For if the darkness and corruption leaveA vestige of the thoughts that once I had,Better by far you should forget and smileThan that you should remember and be sad.

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