Works

Now, now the mirth comes
With the cake full of plums,
Where bean's the king of the sport here;
Beside we must know,
The pea also
Must revel, as queen, in the court here.

Begin then to choose,...

Twilight no other thing is, poets say,
Than the last part of night and first of day.

Two of a thousand things are disallow'd:
A lying rich man, and a poor man proud.

And as time past when Cato the severe
Enter'd the circumspacious theatre,
In reverence of his person everyone
Stood as he had been turn'd from flesh to stone;
E'en so my numbers will astonished be...

I saw about her spotless wrist,
Of blackest silk, a curious twist;
Which, circumvolving gently, there
Enthrall'd her arm as prisoner.
Dark was the jail, but as if light...

Wither'd with years, and bed-rid Mumma lies;
Dry-roasted all, but raw yet in her eyes.

Feacie, some say, doth wash her clothes i' th' lie
That sharply trickles from her either eye.
The laundresses, they envy her good-luck,
Who can with so small charges drive the buck....

Here a pretty baby lies
Sung asleep with lullabies;
Pray be silent, and not stir
Th' easy earth that covers her.

But born, and like a short delight,
I glided by my parents' sight.
That done, the harder fates denied
My longer stay, and so I died.
If, pitying my sad parents' tears,...

Here she lies, a pretty bud,
Lately made of flesh and blood;
Who as soon fell fast asleep,
As her little eyes did peep.
Give her strewings, but not stir
The earth, that lightly covers her.

If men can say that beauty dies,
Marbles will swear that here it lies.
If, reader, then thou canst forbear
In public loss to shed a tear,
The dew of grief upon this stone...

Crooked you are, but that dislikes not me:
So you be straight where virgins straight should be.

Peapes he does strut, and pick his teeth, as if
His jaws had tir'd on some large chine of beef.
But nothing so: the dinner Adam had,
Was cheese full ripe with tears, with bread as sad.

Come, come away
Or let me go;
Must I here stay
Because you're slow,
And will continue so;
Troth, lady, no.

I scorn to be
A slave to state;
And since I'm free,
I will not wait,...

A golden fly one show'd to me,
Clos'd in a box of ivory,
Where both seem'd proud: the fly to have
His burial in an ivory grave;
The ivory took state to hold
A corpse as bright as burnish'd gold....

You say you'll kiss me, and I thank you for it;
But stinking breath, I do as hell abhor it.

So long you did not sing or touch your lute,
We knew 'twas flesh and blood that there sat mute.
But when your playing and your voice came in,
'Twas no more you then, but a cherubin.

Sing me to death; for till thy voice be clear,
'Twill never please the palate of mine ear.

Twice has Pudica been a bride, and led
By holy Hymen to the nuptial bed.
Two youths she's known thrice two, and twice three years;
Yet not a lily from the bed appears:...

As gilliflowers do but stay
To blow, and seed, and so away;
So you, sweet lady, sweet as May,
The garden's glory, lived a while
To lend the world your scent and smile....