Well may my book come forth like public day When such a light as you are leads the way, Who are my work's creator, and alone The flame of it, and the expansion. And look how all those heavenly lamps acquire...
Let there be patrons, patrons like to thee, Brave Porter! poets ne'er will wanting be: Fabius and Cotta, Lentulus, all live In thee, thou man of men! who here do'st give Not only subject-matter for our wit,...
That for seven lusters I did never come To do the rites to thy religious tomb; That neither hair was cut, or true tears shed By me, o'er thee, as justments to the dead,...
Of all those three brave brothers fall'n i' th' war (Not without glory), noble sir, you are, Despite of all concussions, left the stem To shoot forth generations like to them....
If I dare write to you, my lord, who are Of your own self a public theatre, And, sitting, see the wiles, ways, walks of wit, And give a righteous judgment upon it,...
You are a lord, an earl, nay more, a man Who writes sweet numbers well as any can; If so, why then are not these verses hurled, Like Sybil's leaves, throughout the ample world?...
How dull and dead are books that cannot show A prince of Pembroke, and that Pembroke you! You who are high born, and a lord no less Free by your fate than fortune's mightiness,...
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.
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...
Tread, sirs, as lightly as ye can Upon the grave of this old man. Twice forty, bating but one year And thrice three weeks, he lived here. Whom gentle fate translated hence To a more happy residence....
Old Widow Prouse, to do her neighbours evil, Would give, some say, her soul unto the devil. Well, when she's kill'd that pig, goose, cock, or hen, What would she give to get that soul again?
Let all chaste matrons, when they chance to see My num'rous issue, praise and pity me: Praise me for having such a fruitful womb, Pity me, too, who found so soon a tomb.
Flood, if he has for him and his a bit, He says his fore and after grace for it: If meat he wants, then grace he says to see His hungry belly borne on legs jail-free....
I bring ye love. QUES. What will love do? ANS. Like, and dislike ye. I bring ye love. QUES. What will love do? ANS. Stroke ye, to strike ye. I bring ye love. QUES. What will love do?...
Maggot frequents those houses of good-cheer, Talks most, eats most, of all the feeders there. He raves through lean, he rages through the fat, (What gets the master of the meal by that?)...
Sweet Amarillis, by a spring's Soft and soul-melting murmurings, Slept; and thus sleeping, thither flew A Robin-red-breast; who at view, Not seeing her at all to stir,...