Dear Sir of late delighted with the sight Of your four Sisters cloth'd in black and white, Of fairer Dames the Sun ne'r saw the face; Though made a pedestal for Adams Race;...
For being comely, consonant, and free To most of men, but most of all to me; For so decreeing that thy clothes' expense Keeps still within a just circumference; Then for contriving so to load thy board...
Now is your turn, my dearest, to be set A gem in this eternal coronet: 'Twas rich before, but since your name is down It sparkles now like Ariadne's crown. Blaze by this sphere for ever: or this do,...
Life of my life, take not so soon thy flight, But stay the time till we have bade good-night. Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way As soon dispatch'd is by the night as day....
For all thy many courtesies to me, Nothing I have, my Crofts, to send to thee For the requital, save this only one Half of my just remuneration. For since I've travell'd all this realm throughout...
Love, love me now, because I place Thee here among my righteous race: The bastard slips may droop and die Wanting both root and earth; but thy Immortal self shall boldly trust...
For brave comportment, wit without offence, Words fully flowing, yet of influence: Thou art that man of men, the man alone, Worthy the public admiration: Who with thine own eyes read'st what we do write,...
Did I or love, or could I others draw To the indulgence of the rugged law, The first foundation of that zeal should be By reading all her paragraphs in thee, Who dost so fitly with the laws unite,...
For civil, clean, and circumcised wit, And for the comely carriage of it, Thou art the man, the only man best known, Mark'd for the true wit of a million: From whom we'll reckon. Wit came in but since...
Welcome to this my college, and though late Thou'st got a place here (standing candidate) It matters not, since thou art chosen one Here of my great and good foundation.
When I consider, dearest, thou dost stay But here awhile, to languish and decay; Like to these garden glories, which here be The flowery-sweet resemblances of thee:...
Next is your lot, fair, to be number'd one, Here, in my book's canonisation: Late you come in; but you a saint shall be, In chief, in this poetic liturgy.
When first I find those numbers thou dost write, To be most soft, terse, sweet, and perpolite: Next, when I see thee tow'ring in the sky, In an expansion no less large than high;...
One night i'th' year, my dearest Beauties, come, And bring those dew-drink-offerings to my tomb; When thence ye see my reverend ghost to rise, And there to lick th' effused sacrifice,...
These summer-birds did with thy master stay The times of warmth, but then they flew away, Leaving their poet, being now grown old, Expos'd to all the coming winter's cold....
There comes an end to summer, To spring showers and hoar rime; His mumming to each mummer Has somewhere end in time, And since life ends and laughter, And leaves fall and tears dry,...
Help me! help me! now I call To my pretty witchcrafts all; Old I am, and cannot do That I was accustomed to. Bring your magics, spells, and charms, To enflesh my thighs and arms....
You say I love not, 'cause I do not play Still with your curls, and kiss the time away. You blame me, too, because I can't devise Some sport, to please those babies in your eyes; -...