Works

Where love begins, there dead thy first desire:
A spark neglected makes a mighty fire.

Purgatorem animae derisit Jacobus ignem,
Et sine quo superum non adeunda domus.
Frenduit hoc trina monstrum Latiale corona
Movit & horrificum cornua dena minax.
Et nec inultus ait temnes mea sacra Britanne,...

Here lieth one who did most truly prove,
That he could never die while he could move,
So hung his destiny never to rot
While he might still jogg on, and keep his trot,
Made of sphear-metal, never to decay...

Art thou not destin'd? then with haste go on
To make thy fair predestination:
If thou can'st change thy life, God then will please
To change, or call back, His past sentences.

My pedagogue dear, I read with surprise
Your long sorry rhymes, which you made on my eyes;
As the Dean of St. Patrick's says, earth, seas, and skies!
I cannot lie down, but immediately rise,...

Sin is an act so free, that if we shall
Say 'tis not free, 'tis then no sin at all.

This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.

Once he lived a schoolmaster
With a stark, denying look,...

If I might see another Spring
I'd not plant summer flowers and wait:
I'd have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
My white or azure violet,...

Another tattered rhymster in the ring,
With but the old plea to the sneering schools,
That on him too, some secret night in spring
Came the old frenzy of a hundred fools
...

To house the hag, you must do this:
Commix with meal a little piss
Of him bewitch'd; then forthwith make
A little wafer or a cake;
And this rawly bak'd will bring
The old hag in. No surer thing.

Lord, do not beat me,
Since I do sob and cry,
And swoon away to die,
Ere Thou dost threat me.
Lord, do not scourge me,
If I by lies and oaths
Have soil'd myself or clothes,
But rather purge me.

Thou bid'st me come; I cannot come; for why?
Thou dwell'st aloft, and I want wings to fly.
To mount my soul, she must have pinions given;
For 'tis no easy way from earth to heaven.

If Thou be'st taken, God forbid
I fly from Thee, as others did:
But if Thou wilt so honour me
As to accept my company,
I'll follow Thee, hap hap what shall,
Both to the judge and judgment hall:...

Mighty Neptune, may it please
Thee, the rector of the seas,
That my barque may safely run
Through thy watery region;
And a tunny-fish shall be
Offered up with thanks to thee.

Wash your hands, or else the fire
Will not tend to your desire;
Unwashed hands, ye maidens, know,
Dead the fire, though ye blow.

Another Leonora[1] once inspir'd
Tasso, with fatal love to frenzy fir'd,
But how much happier, liv'd he now, were he,
Pierced with whatever pangs for love of Thee!...

First, for your shape, the curious cannot show
Any one part that's dissonant in you:
And 'gainst your chaste behaviour there's no plea,
Since you are known to be Penelope....

She by the river sat, and sitting there,
She wept, and made it deeper by a tear.

Love he that will, it best likes me
To have my neck from love's yoke free.

Thou had'st the wreath before, now take the tree,
That henceforth none be laurel-crown'd but thee.