Yet read at last the story of my woe, The dreary abstracts of my endless cares, With my life's sorrow interlin'd so, Smoked with my sighs, and blotted with my tears, The sad memorials of my miseries,...
As Love and I late harboured in one inn, With Proverbs thus each other entertain. "In love there is no lack," thus I begin: "Fair words make fools," replieth he again....
My fair, if thou wilt register my love, A world of volumes shall thereof arise; Preserve my tears, and thou thyself shall prove A second flood down raining from mine eyes;...
When like an eaglet I first found my love, For that the virtue I thereof would know, Upon the nest I set it forth to prove If it were of that kingly kind or no; But it no sooner saw my sun appear,...
You best discerned of my mind's inward eyes, And yet your graces outwardly divine, Whose dear remembrance in my bosom lies, Too rich a relic for so poor a shrine; You, in whom nature chose herself to view,...
In former times, such as had store of coin, In wars at home or when for conquests bound, For fear that some their treasure should purloin, Gave it to keep to spirits within the ground;...
Define my weal, and tell the joys of heaven; Express my woes and show the pains of hell; Declare what fate unlucky stars have given, And ask a world upon my life to dwell;...
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part, Nay I have done, you get no more of me; And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free;...
When first I ended, then I first began; Then more I travelled further from my rest. Where most I lost, there most of all I won; Pin'd with hunger, rising from a feast. Methinks I fly, yet want I legs to go,...
Truce, gentle Love, a parley now I crave, Methinks 'tis long since first these wars begun; Nor thou, nor I, the better yet can have; Bad is the match where neither party won....
Nothing but "No!" and "I!"[A] and "I!" and "No!" "How falls it out so strangely?" you reply. I tell ye, Fair, I'll not be answered so, With this affirming "No!" denying "I!"...
How many paltry, foolish, painted things, That now in coaches trouble every street, Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings, Ere they be well wrapped in their winding sheet!...
Love, in a humour, played the prodigal, And bade my senses to a solemn feast; Yet more to grace the company withal, Invites my heart to be the chiefest guest. No other drink would serve this glutton's turn,...
There's nothing grieves me but that age should haste, That in my days I may not see thee old; That where those two clear sparkling eyes are placed, Only two loopholes that I might behold;...
To nothing fitter can I thee compare Than to the son of some rich penny-father, Who having now brought on his end with care, Leaves to his son all he had heaped together....
You're not alone when you are still alone; O God! from you that I could private be! Since you one were, I never since was one; Since you in me, myself since out of me....
That learned Father which so firmly proves The soul of man immortal and divine, And doth the several offices define Anima. Gives her that name, as she the body moves....
If he, from heaven that filched that living fire, Condemned by Jove to endless torment be, I greatly marvel how you still go free That far beyond Prometheus did aspire....
You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why? There was a time you told me that you would, But how again you will the same deny. If it might please you, would to God you could!...
My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat, My words the hammers fashioning my desire, My breast the forge including all the heat, Love is the fuel which maintains the fire;...