Astrophil and Stella 1: Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show

By Sir Philip Sidney

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,— Pleasure
might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,—
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburn'd brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows; And
others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write."
Astrophil and Stella 2: Not at first sight, nor with a dribbèd shot
By Sir Philip Sidney

Not at first sight, nor with a dribbèd shot,

Love gave the wound which while I breathe will bleed:
But known worth did in mine of time proceed, Till
by degrees it had full conquest got.
I saw, and liked; I liked, but lovèd not;
I loved, but straight did not what love decreed:

At length to love’s decrees I, forced, agreed, Yet

with repining at so partial lot.
Now even that footstep of lost liberty
Is gone, and now like slave-born Muscovite
I call it praise to suffer tyranny;
And now employ the remnant of my wit
To make myself believe that all is well,
While with a feeling skill I paint my hell.
Astrophil and Stella 3: Let dainty wits cry on the sisters nine
By Sir Philip Sidney

Let dainty wits cry on the sisters nine,

That, bravely mask'd, their fancies may be told;
Or, Pindar's apes, flaunt they in phrases fine,
Enam'ling with pied flowers their thoughts of gold.
Or else let them in statelier glory shine,
Ennobling newfound tropes with problems old;
Or with strange similes enrich each line,
Of herbs or beasts which Ind or Afric hold.
For me, in sooth, no Muse but one I know;
Phrases and problems from my reach do grow,
And strange things cost too dear for my poor sprites.
How then? even thus: in Stella's face I read
What love and beauty be; then all my deed But
copying is, what in her Nature writes.
Sonnet 108: When Sorrow
By Philip Sydney

When sorrow (using mine own fire's might)

Melts down his lead into my boiling breast;
Through that dark furnace to my heart oppress'd
There shines a joy from thee, my only light;

But soon as thought of thee breeds my delight,

And my young soul flutters to thee his nest,
Most rude despair, my daily unbidden guest,
Clips straight my wings, straight wraps me in his night,

And makes me then bow down my head and say,

"Ah, what doth Phoebus' gold that wretch avail
Whom iron doors do keep from use of day?"

So strangely (alas) thy works in me prevail,

That in my woes for thee thou art my joy, And
in my joys for thee my only annoy.
Sonnet 134: So now I have confessed that he is thine
By William Shakespeare

So now I have confessed that he is thine,

And I myself am mortgaged to thy will,

Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine

Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind; He
learned but surety-like to write for me,
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,

Thou usurer, that put’st forth all to use,

And sue a friend came debtor for my sake; So
him I lose through my unkind abuse.
Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:
He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.
Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
By William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 36: Let Me Confess That We Two Must Be Twain
By William Shakespeare

Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one: So
shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love’s sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
By John Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst
some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,

Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,

That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
The Sun Rising
By John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices, Love,
all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong

Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And
thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

She's all states, and all princes, I,

Nothing else is. Princes do but play us;
compared to this, All honor's mimic, all
wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
The Good-Morrow
By John Donne

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till

we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let
maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where
can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.
The Flea
By John Donne

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met, And
cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled

thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou
Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

Easter Wings
By George Herbert

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,

Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With thee
O let me rise As
larks, harmoniously, And sing
this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne

And still with sicknesses and shame.
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With thee
Let me combine,
And feel thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.
The Collar
By George Herbert

I struck the board, and cried, "No more;

I will abroad!
What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My
lines and life are free, free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn To
let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine Before my
sighs did dry it; there was corn Before
my tears did drown it.
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it, No
flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
All wasted? Not so, my
heart; but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
 And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away! take heed;
I will abroad.
Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need
Deserves his load."
But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild
At every word, Methought I
heard one calling, Child!
And I replied My Lord.
They are all Gone into the World of Light
By Henry Vaughan

They are all gone into the world of light!

And I alone sit ling’ring here;

Their very memory is fair and bright, And
my sad thoughts doth clear.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,

Like stars upon some gloomy grove, Or those
faint beams in which this hill is drest,

After the sun’s remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days: My
days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.

O holy Hope! and high Humility, High

as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have show’d them me To

kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just,

Shining nowhere, but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust Could
man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledg’d bird’s nest, may know

At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now, That
is to him unknown.

And yet as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the

soul, when man doth sleep: So some strange thoughts
transcend our wonted themes And into glory peep.

If a star were confin’d into a tomb,

Her captive flames must needs burn there;

But when the hand that lock’d her up, gives room,

She’ll shine through all the sphere.

O Father of eternal life, and all Created

glories under thee! Resume thy spirit
from this world of thrall Into true liberty.

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill

My perspective still as they pass, Or
else remove me hence unto that hill,
Where I shall need no glass.
To His Coy Mistress
By Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough and time, This

coyness, lady, were no crime. We would
sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would Love
you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse Till
the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor
would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie Deserts
of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved
virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place, But

none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life: Thus,
though we cannot make our sun Stand
still, yet we will make him run.