Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years, I have had, and have, my peers; Poets, though divine, are men, Some have lov'd as old again....
See the chariot at hand here of Love, Wherein my lady rideth! Each that draws is a swan or a dove, And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty Unto her beauty;...
Rhyme, the rack of finest wits, That expresseth but by fits True conceit, Spoiling senses of their treasure, Cozening judgment with a measure, But false weight;...
I sing the birth was born tonight, The Author both of life and light; The angels so did sound it, And like the ravished shepherds said, Who saw the light, and were afraid,...
Weep with me, all you that read This little story; And know, for whom a tear you shed Death's self is sorry. 'Twas a child that so did thrive In grace and feature,...
Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps doth die; And this security, It is the common moth That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both. ...
On the happy entrace of Iames, our Soveraigne, to His first high Session of Parliament in this his Kingdome, the 19 of March, 1603. Licet toto nunc Helicone frui.
THE TURN Brave infant of Saguntum, clear Thy coming forth in that great year, When the prodigious Hannibal did crown His rage with razing your immortal town. Thou looking then about,...
Again! Come, give, yield all your strength to me! From far a low word breathes on the breaking brain Its cruel calm, submission's misery, Gentling her awe as to a soul predestined....
I that have been a lover, and could show it, Though not in these, in rhymes not wholly dumb, Since I exscribe your sonnets, am become A better lover, and much better poet....
For love's sake, kiss me once again; I long, and should not beg in vain, Here's none to spy or see; Why do you doubt or stay? I'll taste as lightly as the bee...
'Tis growne almost a danger to speake true Of any good minde, now: There are so few. The bad, by number, are so fortified, As what th'have lost t'expect, they dare deride....
Weep with me, all you that read This little story; And know for whom a tear you shed, Death's self is sorry. 'Twas a child that so did thrive In grace and feature,...
Kim, composite of all my loves, less real than most, more real than all; of my making, all the good and some of the bad, yet of yourself; sole, unique, strong, alone, whole, independent, one: yet mine...
Have you seen but a bright lily grow Before rude hands have touched it? Have you marked but the fall of snow Before the soil hath smutched it? Have you felt the wool of beaver, Or swan's down ever?...