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....
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....
It is usual for people in this country (out of pretended respect but rather from an impertinent curiosity) to desire to see persons after they are dead. ...
Living a whole life has three conditions: absorbing work which demands and brings fulfilment, a group of friends with whom to exchange minds, and a full love to be lost in all the time. ...
'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....
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?...
In the ember days of my last free summer, here I lie, outside myself, watching the gross body eating a poor curry: satisfied at what I have done, scared of what I have to do in my last free winter.
It is not growing like a tree In bulk doth make Man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May,...
Walking, snow falling, it is possible to focus at various distances in turn on separate flakes, sharply engage the attention at several spatial points: the nearer cold and more uncomfortable,...
The decorously informative church Guide to Sex suggested that any urge could well be controlled by playing tennis: and the game provided also "many harmless opportunities for healthy...
I now think Love is rather deaf than blind, For else it could not be That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me And cast my love behind; I'm sure my language to her was as sweet,...
Wouldst thou hear what Man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much Beauty as could die: Which in life did harbour give...
This morning, timely rapt with holy fire, I thought to form unto my zealous Muse What kind of creature I could most desire, To honour, serve, and love; as poets use....
Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses' day, their morning star! If works, not th' author's, their own grace should look, Whose poems would not wish to be your book?...
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...
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; While I confess thy writings to be such As neither man nor Muse can praise too much....
Some act of Love's bound to reherse, I thought to bind him, in my verse: Which when he felt, Away (quoth he) Can Poets hope to fetter me? It is enough, they once did get...