Works

How dull and dead are books that cannot show
A prince of Pembroke, and that Pembroke you!
You who are high born, and a lord no less
Free by your fate than fortune's mightiness,...

Go, happy Rose, and interwove
With other flowers, bind my Love.
Tell her, too, she must not be
Longer flowing, longer free,
That so oft has fetter'd me.

Say, if she's fretful, I have bands...

If thou dislik'st the piece thou light'st on first,
Think that of all, that I have writ, the worst:
But if thou read'st my book unto the end,
And still do'st this and that verse, reprehend;...

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a getting;...

Reach with your whiter hands to me
Some crystal of the spring;
And I about the cup shall see
Fresh lilies flourishing.

Or else, sweet nymphs, do you but this
To th' glass your lips incline;...

Sweet western wind, whose luck it is,
Made rival with the air,
To give Perenna's lip a kiss,
And fan her wanton hair.

Bring me but one, I'll promise thee,
Instead of common showers,...

Thou art to all lost love the best,
The only true plant found,
Wherewith young men and maids distrest
And left of love, are crown'd.

When once the lover's rose is dead
Or laid aside forlorn,...

Both you two have
Relation to the grave:
And where
The funeral-trump sounds, you are there,

I shall be made,
Ere long, a fleeting shade:
Pray, come
And do some honour to my tomb.
...

Welcome, maids of honour,
You do bring
In the Spring;
And wait upon her.

She has virgins many,
Fresh and fair;
Yet you are
More sweet than any.

You're the maiden posies;...

Hear, ye virgins, and I'll teach
What the times of old did preach.
Rosamond was in a bower
Kept, as Danae in a tower:
But yet Love, who subtle is,
Crept to that, and came to this....

Thy sooty godhead I desire
Still to be ready with thy fire;
That should my book despised be,
Acceptance it might find of thee.

Close keep your lips, if that you mean
To be accounted inside clean:
For if you cleave them we shall see
There in your teeth much leprosy.

Drink wine, and live here blitheful while ye may;
The morrow's life too late is; Live to-day.

The seeds of treason choke up as they spring:
He acts the crime that gives it cherishing.

Wilt thou my true friend be?
Then love not mine, but me.

'Tis not the walls or purple that defends
A prince from foes, but 'tis his fort of friends.

Truth is best found out by the time and eyes;
Falsehood wins credit by uncertainties.

Twixt truth and error, there's this difference known
Error is fruitful, truth is only one.

Truth by her own simplicity is known,
Falsehood by varnish and vermilion.

Truth by her own simplicity is known,
Falsehood by varnish and vermilion.