Works

What may words say, or what may words not say,
Where Truth itself must speake like Flatterie?
Within what bounds can one his liking stay,
Where Nature doth with infinite agree?...

Stella, whence doth these new assaults arise,
A conquerd yeelding ransackt heart to winne,
Whereto long since, through my long-battred eyes,
Whole armies of thy beauties entred in?...

My mouth doth water, and my breast doth swell,
My tongue doth itch, my thoughts in labour be:
Listen then, lordings, with good ear to me,
For of my life I must a riddle tell....

This night, while sleepe begins with heauy wings
To hatch mine eyes, and that vnbitted thought
Doth fall to stray, and my chief powres are brought
To leaue the scepter of all subiect things;...

O deare Life, when shall it bee
That mine eyes thine eyes shall see,
And in them thy mind discouer
Whether absence haue had force
thy remembrance to diuorce
From the image of thy louer?
...

If Orpheus voyce had force to breathe such musickes loue
Through pores of senceles trees, as it could make them moue;
If stones good measure daunc'd, the Theban walles to build...

Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread,
For Love is dead:
All Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain:
Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And faith fair scorn doth gain....

Walking in bright Phoebus' blaze,
Where with heat oppressed I was,
I got to a shady wood,
Where green leaves did newly bud;
And of grass was plenty dwelling,
Decked with pied flowers sweetly smelling....

Leave me, O love! which reachest but to dust;
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things:
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust;
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.
...

My mistress lowers, and saith I do not love:
I do protest, and seek with service due,
In humble mind, a constant faith to prove;
But for all this, I cannot her remove...

When, to my deadly pleasure,
When to my lively torment,
Lady, mine eyes remained
Joined, alas! to your beams.

With violence of heavenly
Beauty, tied to virtue;
Reason abashed retired;...

A satyr once did run away for dread,
With sound of horn which he himself did blow:
Fearing and feared, thus from himself he fled,
Deeming strange evil in that he did not know.
...

To the tune of "Wilhelmus van Nassau," &c.

Who hath his fancy pleased,
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raised
On Nature's sweetest light;
A light which doth dissever,...

The dart, the beams, the sting, so strong I prove,
Which my chief part doth pass through, parch, and tie,
That of the stroke, the heat, and knot of love,
Wounded, inflamed, knit to the death, I die.
...

Ah, poor Love, why dost thou live,
Thus to see thy service lost;
If she will no comfort give,
Make an end, yield up the ghost!

That she may, at length, approve
That she hardly long believed,...

I.

Near Wilton sweet, huge heaps of stones are found,
But so confused, that neither any eye
Can count them just, nor Reason reason try,
What force brought them to so unlikely ground.
...

I.

Who hath e'er felt the change of love,
And known those pangs that losers prove,
May paint my face without seeing me,
And write the state how my fancies be,...

From "La Diana de Monte-Mayor," in Spanish: where Sireno, a shepherd, whose mistress Diana had utterly forsaken him, pulling out a little of her hair, wrapped about with green silk, to the hair he thus bewailed himself....

You better sure shall live, not evermore
Trying high seas; nor, while sea's rage you flee,
Pressing too much upon ill-harboured shore.

The golden mean who loves, lives safely free...

Made by Sir Philip Sidney, upon his meeting with his two worthy friends and fellow poets, Sir Edward Dyer and M. Fulke Greville.

Join mates in mirth to me,
Grant pleasure to our meeting;...