ON THE MOON

I with borrow’d silver shine
What you see is none of mine. 
First I show you but a quarter,
Like the bow that guards the Tartar: 
Then the half, and then the whole,
Ever dancing round the pole.

What will raise your admiration,
I am not one of God’s creation,
But sprung, (and I this truth maintain,)
Like Pallas, from my father’s brain. 
And after all, I chiefly owe
My beauty to the shades below. 
Most wondrous forms you see me wear,
A man, a woman, lion, bear,
A fish, a fowl, a cloud, a field,
All figures Heaven or earth can yield;
Like Daphne sometimes in a tree;
Yet am not one of all you see.

ON A CIRCLE

I’m up and down, and round about,
Yet all the world can’t find me out;
Though hundreds have employ’d their leisure,
They never yet could find my measure. 
I’m found almost in every garden,
Nay, in the compass of a farthing. 
There’s neither chariot, coach, nor mill,
Can move an inch except I will.

ON INK

I am jet black, as you may see,
  The son of pitch and gloomy night: 
Yet all that know me will agree,
  I’m dead except I live in light.

Sometimes in panegyric high,
  Like lofty Pindar, I can soar;
And raise a virgin to the sky,
  Or sink her to a pocky whore.

My blood this day is very sweet,
  To-morrow of a bitter juice;
Like milk, ’tis cried about the street,
  And so applied to different use.

Most wondrous is my magic power: 
  For with one colour I can paint;
I’ll make the devil a saint this hour,
  Next make a devil of a saint.

Through distant regions I can fly,
  Provide me but with paper wings;
And fairly show a reason why
  There should be quarrels among kings: 

And, after all, you’ll think it odd,
  When learned doctors will dispute,
That I should point the word of God,
  And show where they can best confute.

Let lawyers bawl and strain their throats: 
  ’Tis I that must the lands convey,
And strip their clients to their coats;
  Nay, give their very souls away.

ON THE FIVE SENSES

All of us in one you’ll find, Brethren of a wondrous kind;
Yet among us all no brother
Knows one tittle of the other;
We in frequent councils are,
And our marks of things declare,
Where, to us unknown, a clerk
Sits, and takes them in the dark. 
He’s the register of all
In our ken, both great and small;
By us forms his laws and rules,
He’s our master, we his tools;
Yet we can with greatest ease
Turn and wind him where we please. 
  One of us alone can sleep,
Yet no watch the rest will keep,