George Herbert. The Answer.

George Herbert

THE ANSWER.

MY comforts drop and melt away like snow :
I shake my head, and all the thoughts and ends,
Which my fierce youth did bandie, fall and flow
Like leaves about me, or like summer friends,
Flyes of estates and sunne-shine. But to all,
Who think me eager, hot, and undertaking,
But in my prosecutions slack and small ;
As a young exhalation, newly waking,
Scorns his first bed of dirt, and means the sky ;
But cooling by the way, grows pursie and slow,
And settling to a cloud, doth live and die
In that dark state of tears : to all, that so
Show me, and set me, I have one reply,
Which they that know the rest, know more then I.

Source:
Herbert, George. The Poetical Works of George Herbert.
New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1857. 215-216.

to Works of George Herbert