JOHN WILMOT'S POEM - LOVE AND LIFE

 

 

On the 19 th day of the Blog chatter’s #WRITEAPAGEADAY, Here is a poem with love as the major theme.

 

Poet:  John Wilmot

Poem:  Love and Life

 

All my past life is mine no more,

    The flying hours are gone,

   Like transitory dreams giv’n o’er,

   Whose images are kept in store

    By memory alone.

 

   The time that 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 only thine.

 

   Then talk not of inconstancy,

   False hearts, and broken vows;

I   If I, by miracle, can be

   This live-long minute true to thee,

    ’Tis all that Heav'n allows.

 

 John Wilmot was born on 1 April—All Fools' Day—1647 to Anne and Henry Wilmot at Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire, near Woodstock.   John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester succeeded his father to the earldom in 1658, and he received his M.A. at Oxford in 1661. He was ranked as a poet second only to John Dryden.  He was a court wit and poet who helped establish English satiric poetry.

  Rochester's poetic work varies widely in form, genre, and content. He was part of a "mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease", who continued to produce their poetry in manuscripts, rather than in publication. The majority of his poetry was not published under his name until after his death. Because most of his poems circulated only in manuscript form during his lifetime, it is likely that much of his writing does not survive.  His poetry was widely censored during the Victorian Era, but enjoyed a revival from the 1920s onwards, with reappraisals from noted literary figures such as  Graham Green and Ezra Pound.

 Rochester is generally considered to be the most considerable poet and the most learned among the Restoration wits. He is also one of the most original and powerful of English satirists. A Satyr Against Mankind (1675), Homosapiens, Return and The Mistress were few of his famous poems.