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EDMUND SPENSER | So oft as I her beauty do behold,
And therewith do her cruelty compare,
I marvel of what substance was the mould
The which her made at once so cruel-fair.
Not earth; for her high thoughts more heavenly are:
Not water; for her love doth burn like fire:
Not air; for she is not so light or rare:
Not fire; for she d... | Amoretti LV: So oft as I her beauty do behold | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | The weary yeare his race now having run,
The new begins his compast course anew:
With shew of morning mylde he hath begun,
Betokening peace and plenty to ensew.
So let us, which this chaunge of weather vew,
Chaunge eeke our mynds and former lives amend,
The old yeares sinnes forepast let us eschew,
And fly the f... | Amoretti LXII: "The weary yeare his race now having run" | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | To all those happy blessings which ye have,
With plenteous hand by heaven upon you thrown:
This one disparagement they to you gave,
That ye your love lent to so meane a one.
Yee whose high worths surpassing paragon,
Could not on earth have found one fit for mate,
Ne but in heaven matchable to none,
Why did ye st... | Amoretti LXVI: "To all those happy blessings which ye have" | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king,
In whose cote armour richly are displayed
All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring
In goodly colours gloriously arrayd:
Goe to my love, where she is carelesse layd,
Yet in her winters bowre not well awake:
Tell her the joyous time wil not be staid
Unless she... | Amoretti LXX: Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | I joy to see how in your drawen work,
Your selfe unto the Bee ye doe compare;
And me unto the Spyder that doth lurke,
In close awayt to catch her unaware.
Right so your selfe were caught in cunning snare
Of a deare for, and thralled to his love:
In whose streight bands ye now captived are
So firmely, that ye nev... | Amoretti LXXI: I joy to see how in your drawen work | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | Fayre is my love, when her fayre golden heares,
With the loose wynd ye waving chance to marke:
Fayre when the rose in her red cheekes appears,
Or in her eyes the fyre of love does sparke.
Fayre when her brest lyke a rich laden barke,
With pretious merchandize she forth doth lay:
Fayre when that cloud of pryde whi... | Amoretti LXXXI: Fayre is my love, when her fayre golden heares | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | Lyke as the Culver on the bared bough,
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate:
And in her songs sends many a wishfull vow,
For his returne that seemes to linger late,
So I alone now left disconsolate,
Mourne to my selfe the absence of my love:
And wandring here and there all desolate,
Seek with my playnts to ... | Amoretti LXXXIX: Lyke as the Culver on the bared bough | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | More then most faire, full of the living fire,
Kindled above unto the maker neere:
No eies but joyes, in which al powers conspire,
That to the world naught else be counted deare.
Thrugh your bright beams doth not the blinded guest
Shoot out his darts to base affections wound?
But Angels come to lead fraile mindes... | Amoretti VIII: More then most faire, full of the living fire | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth,
Whiles her faire face she reares up to the skie:
And to the ground her eie lids low embaseth
Most goodly temperature ye may descry,
Myld humblesse mixt with awfull majesty,
For looking on the earth whence she was borne:
Her minde remembreth her mortalitie,
What so... | Amoretti XIII: "In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth" | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle,
Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain:
And both the Indias of their treasures spoile,
What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?
For loe my love doth in her selfe containe
All this worlds riches that may farre be found,
If Saphyres, loe hir eies be Saphyre... | Amoretti XV: Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | Penelope for her Ulisses sake,
Devizd a Web her wooers to deceave:
In which the worke that she all day did make
The same at night she did again unreave:
Such subtile craft my Damzell doth conceave,
Th importune suit of my desire to shnone:
For all that I in many dayes doo weave,
In one short houre I find by her ... | Amoretti XXIII: Penelope for her Ulisses sake | Renaissance | Love |
EDMUND SPENSER | My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames a... | Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire | Renaissance | Love |
EN JONSON | Though beauty be the mark of praise,
And yours of whom I sing be such
As not the world can praise too much,
Yet tis your virtue now I raise.
A virtue, like allay, so gone
Throughout your form, as, though that move
And draw and conquer all mens love,
This subjects you to love of one.
Wherein you ... | An Elegy | Renaissance | Love |
GEORGE GASCOIGNE | And if I did, what then?
Are you aggrievd therefore?
The sea hath fish for every man,
And what would you have more?
Thus did my mistress once,
Amaze my mind with doubt;
And poppd a question for the nonce
To beat my brains about.
Whereto I thus replied:
Each fisherman can wish
That all the seas at ev... | And If I Did, What Then? | Renaissance | Love |
JOHN DONNE | All Kings, and all their favourites,
All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass,
Is elder by a year now than it was
When thou and I first one another saw:
All other things to their destruction draw,
Only our love hath no decay;
This... | The Anniversary | Renaissance | Love |
SIR WALTER RALEGH | As you came from the holy land
Of Walsingham,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?
How shall I know your true love,
That have met many one,
I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone?
She is neither white, nor brown,
But as the heavens fair;
There is none hath a form so divin... | As You Came from the Holy Land (attributed) | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Stella is sick, and in that sick-bed lies
Sweetness, that breathes and pants as oft as she;
And grace, sick too, such fine conclusions tries
That sickness brags itself best graced to be.
Beauty is sick, but sick in so fair guise
That in that paleness beautys white we see;
And joy, which is inseparate from the... | Astrophil and Stella 101: Stella is sick, and in that sick-bed lies | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Where be the roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes?
Where those red cheeks, which oft with fair increase did frame
The height of honor in the kindly badge of shame?
Who hath the crimson weeds stolen from my morning skies?
How doth the color vade of those vermilion dyes,
Which Nature's self did make, ... | Astrophil and Stella 102: Where be the roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes? | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | O absent presence, Stella is not here;
False flattering hope, that with so fair a face
Bare me in hand, that in this orphan place
Stella, I say my Stella, should appear.
What sayst thou now? Where is that dainty cheer
Thou toldst mine eyes should help their famished case?
But thou art gone, now th... | Astrophil and Stella 106: O absent presence, Stella is not here | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Stella, since thou so right a princess art
Of all the powers which life bestows on me,
There ere by them aught undertaken be
They first resort unto that sovereign part;
Sweet, for a while give respite to my heart,
Which pants as though it still should leap to thee,
And on my thoughts give thy lieutenancy
To this... | Astrophil and Stella 107: Stella, since thou so right a princess art | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend,
Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire
Than did on him who first stale down the fire,
While Love on me doth all his quiver spend,
But with your rhubarb words you must contend
To grieve me worse, in saying that Desire
Doth plunge my well-formed soul even in the mire
O... | Astrophil and Stella 14: Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed 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 loved not;
I loved, but straight did not what love decreed:
At length to loves decree... | Astrophil and Stella 2: Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Your words my friend (right healthful caustics) blame
My young mind marred, whom Love doth windlass so,
That mine own writings like bad servants show
My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame,
That Plato I read for nought, but if he tame
Such coltish gyres, that to my birth I owe
Nobler desires, least else ... | Astrophil and Stella 21: Your words my friend (right healthful caustics) blame | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | The wisest scholar of the wight most wise
By Phoebus doom, with sugared sentence says
That Virtue, if it once met with our eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise;
But, for that man with pain this truth descries,
While he each thing in senses balance weighs,
And so nor will nor can behold those s... | Astrophil and Stella 25: The wisest scholar of the wight most wise | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbst the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feelst a lovers case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
T... | Astrophil and Stella 30: With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | What, have I thus betrayed my liberty?
Can those black beams such burning marks engrave
In my free side? or am I born a slave,
Whose neck becomes such yoke of tyranny?
Or want I sense to feel my misery?
Or sprite, disdain of such disdain to have?
Who for long faith, though daily help I crave,
May get no alms but... | Astrophil and Stella 47: What, have I thus betrayed my liberty? | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Souls joy, bend not those morning stars from me,
Where virtue is made strong by beautys might,
Where love is chasteness, pain doth learn delight,
And humbleness grows one with majesty.
Whatever may ensue, O let me be
Co-partner of the riches of that sight;
Let not mine eyes be hell-drivn from that light;
O look,... | Astrophil and Stella 48: Souls joy, bend not those morning stars from me | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | I on my horse, and Love on me, doth try
Our horsemanships, while by strange work I prove
A horseman to my horse, a horse to Love,
And now mans wrongs in me, poor beast, descry.
The reins wherewith my rider doth me tie
Are humbled thoughts, which bit of reverence move,
Curbed in with fear, but with gilt boss above... | Astrophil and Stella 49: I on my horse, and Love on me, doth try | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
The inward light; and that the heavenly part
Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
It is most true, what we call Cupids dart,
An image is, which for ourselves we carve;
And, fools, adore in temple of our h... | Astrophil and Stella 5: It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | A strife is grown between Virtue and Love,
While each pretends that Stella must be his:
Her eyes, her lips, her all, saith Love, do this,
Since they do wear his badge, most firmly prove.
But Virtue thus that title doth disprove,
That Stella (O dear name) that Stella is
That virtuous soul, sure heir of heavnly bli... | Astrophil and Stella 52: A strife is grown between Virtue and Love | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | O Grammar rules, O now your virtues show;
So children still read you with awful eyes,
As my young Dove may in your precepts wise
Her grant to me, by her own virtue know.
For late with heart most high, with eyes most low,
I cravd the thing which ever she denies:
She lightning Love, displaying Venus... | Astrophil and Stella 63: O Grammar rules, O now your virtues show | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Desire, though thou my old companion art,
And oft so clings to my pure Love that I
One from the other scarcely can descry,
While each doth blow the fire of my heart,
Now from thy fellowship I needs must part;
Venus is taught with Dians wings to fly;
I must no more in thy sweet passions lie;
Virtues gold now must... | Astrophil and Stella 72: Desire, though thou my old companion art | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame,
Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee;
Thine eyes my pride, thy lips my history;
If thou praise not, all other praise is shame.
Nor so ambitious am I, as to frame
A nest for my young praise in laurel tree:
In truth I sweare, I wish not there should be
Graved... | Astrophil and Stella 90: Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame | Renaissance | Love |
GEORGE CHAPMAN | O come, soft rest of cares! come, Night!
Come, naked Virtues only tire,
The reaped harvest of the light
Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire,
Love calls to war:
Sighs his alarms,
Lips his swords are,
The fields his arms.
Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand
... | Bridal Song | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS CAMPION | There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies blow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:
There cherries grow which none may buy
Till Cherry-ripe themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her... | Cherry-Ripe | Renaissance | Love |
ISABELLA WHITNEY | The time is come, I must depart
from thee, ah famous city;
I never yet to rue my smart,
did find that thou hadst pity.
Wherefore small cause there is, that I
should grieve from thee to go;
But many women foolishly,
like me, and other moe,
Do such a fixed fancy set,
on those which least deserve,
... | A Communication Which the Author Had to London, Before She Made Her Will | Renaissance | Love |
HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY | O happy dames, that may embrace
The fruit of your delight,
Help to bewail the woeful case
And eke the heavy plight
Of me, that wonted to rejoice
The fortune of my pleasant choice;
Good ladies, help to fill my mourning voice.
In ship, freight with remembrance
Of thoughts and pleasures past,
He sails that hath... | Complaint of the Absence of Her Love Being Upon the Sea | Renaissance | Love |
SAMUEL DANIEL | Unto the boundless Ocean of thy beauty
Runs this poor river, charged with streams of zeal:
Returning thee the tribute of my duty,
Which here my love, my youth, my plaints reveal.
Here I unclasp the book of my charged soul,
Where I have cast th'accounts of all my care:
Here have I summed my sighs, here I enroll
H... | Delia 1: Unto the boundless Ocean of thy beauty | Renaissance | Love |
SAMUEL DANIEL | Go wailing verse, the infants of my love,
Minerva-like, brought forth without a Mother:
Present the image of the cares I prove,
Witness your Fathers grief exceeds all other.
Sigh out a story of her cruel deeds,
With interrupted accents of despair:
A monument that whosoever reads,
May justly praise, and blame my ... | Delia 2: Go wailing verse, the infants of my love | Renaissance | Love |
SAMUEL DANIEL | But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again,
Now whilst thy May hath filed thy lap with flowers,
Now whilst thy beauty bears without a stain,
Now use the summer smiles, ere winter lowers.
And whilst thou spreadst unto the rising sun
The fairest flower that ever saw the light,
Now joy thy time before thy sweet ... | Delia 32: But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again | Renaissance | Love |
SAMUEL DANIEL | But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again,
Now whilst thy May hath filled thy lap with flowers,
Now whilst thy beauty bears without a stain,
Now use the summer smiles, ere winter lowers.
And whilst thou spreadst unto the rising sun
The fairest flower that ever saw the light,
Now joy thy time before thy sweet... | Delia 36: But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again | Renaissance | Love |
SAMUEL DANIEL | When men shall find thy flower, thy glory pass,
And thou, with careful brow sitting alone,
Received hast this message from thy glass,
That tells thee truth, and says that all is gone,
Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou madest,
Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining,
I that have loved thee thus b... | Delia 37: When men shall find thy flower, thy glory pass | Renaissance | Love |
SAMUEL DANIEL | Unhappy pen and ill accepted papers,
That intimate in vain my chaste desires,
My chaste desires, the ever burning tapers,
Enkindled by her eyes celestial fires.
Celestial fires and unrespecting powers,
That deign not view the glory of your might,
In humble lines the work of careful hours,
The sacrifice I offer t... | Delia 53: Unhappy pen and ill accepted papers | Renaissance | Love |
SIR THOMAS WYATT | A face that should content me wondrous well
Should not be fair but lovely to behold,
With gladsome cheer all grief for to expel;
With sober looks so would I that it should
Speak without words such words as none can tell;
Her tress also should be of crisped gold;
With wit; and thus might chance I might be tied,
A... | A Description of Such a One As He Would Love | Renaissance | Love |
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE | In summers heat and mid-time of the day
To rest my limbs upon a bed I lay,
One window shut, the other open stood,
Which gave such light as twinkles in a wood,
Like twilight glimpse at setting of the sun
Or night being past, and yet not day begun.
Such light to shamefaced maidens must be shown,
Where they may spo... | Elegies, Book One, 5 | Renaissance | Love |
JOHN DONNE | So, so breake off this last lamenting kisse,
Which sucks two soules, and vapours Both away,
Turne thou ghost that way, and let mee turne this,
And let our selves benight our happiest day,
We askd none leave to love; nor will we owe
Any, so cheape a death, as saying, Goe;
Goe; and if that word have n... | The Expiration | Renaissance | Love |
SIR WALTER RALEGH | Farewell, false love, the oracle of lies,
A mortal foe and enemy to rest,
An envious boy, from whom all cares arise,
A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed,
A way of error, a temple full of treason,
In all effects contrary unto reason.
A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers,
Mother of sighs, and murd... | A Farewell to False Love | Renaissance | Love |
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 knowst that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells wi... | The Flea | Renaissance | Love |
GEORGE GASCOIGNE | You must not wonder, though you think it strange,
To see me hold my louring head so low,
And that mine eyes take no delight to range
About the gleams which on your face do grow.
The mouse which once hath broken out of trap
Is seldom ticed with the trustless bait,
But lies aloof for fear of more mishap,
And feede... | For That He Looked Not upon Her | Renaissance | Love |
SIR WALTER RALEGH | Fortune hath taken thee away, my love,
My lifes soul and my souls heaven above;
Fortune hath taken thee away, my princess;
My only light and my true fancys mistress.
Fortune hath taken all away from me,
Fortune hath taken all by taking thee.
Dead to all joy, I only live to woe,
So fortune now becomes my mortal... | [Fortune Hath Taken Thee Away, My Love] | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Only joy, now here you are,
Fit to hear and ease my care;
Let my whispering voice obtain,
Sweet reward for sharpest pain;
Take me to thee, and thee to me.
No, no, no, no, my dear, let be.
Night hath closed all in her cloak,
Twinkling stars love-thoughts provoke:
Danger hence good care doth keep,
Jealousy its... | Fourth Song | Renaissance | Love |
HENRY VIII, KING OF ENGLAND | Green groweth the holly,
So doth the ivy.
Though winter blasts blow never so high,
Green groweth the holly.
As the holly groweth green
And never changeth hue,
So I am, ever hath been,
Unto my lady true.
As the holly groweth green
With ivy all alone
When flowers cannot be seen
And greenwood leaves be gone... | Green Groweth the Holly | Renaissance | Love |
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE | It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should lose, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censure... | from Hero and Leander: "It lies not in our power to love or hate" | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS CAMPION | I care not for these ladies,
That must be wooed and prayed:
Give me kind Amaryllis,
The wanton country maid.
Nature art disdaineth,
Her beauty is her own.
Her when we court and kiss,
She cries, Forsooth, let go!
But when we come where comfort is,
She never will say no.
If I love Amaryllis,
She gives me fru... | I Care Not for These Ladies | Renaissance | Love |
HENRY VIII, KING OF ENGLAND | If love now reigned as it hath been
And were rewarded as it hath sin,
Noble men then would sure ensearch
All ways whereby they might it reach,
But envy reigneth with such disdain
And causeth lovers outwardly to refrain,
Which puts them to more and more
Inwardly most grievous and sore.
The fault in whom ... | If Love Now Reigned As It Hath Been | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS NASHE | Adieu, farewell, earths bliss;
This world uncertain is;
Fond are lifes lustful joys;
Death proves them all but toys;
None from his darts can fly;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade.
All things to end are made,... | In Time of Plague [Adieu, farewell, earths bliss] | Renaissance | Love |
EN JONSON | Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house, and I
Do equally desire your company;
Not that we think us worthy such a guest,
But that your worth will dignify our feast
With those that come, whose grace may make that seem
Something, which else could hope for no esteem.
It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates
The enter... | Inviting a Friend to Supper | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS CAMPION | Kind are her answers,
But her performance keeps no day;
Breaks time, as dancers
From their own music when they stray:
All her free favors
And smooth words wing my hopes in vain.
O did ever voice so sweet but only feign?
Can true love yield such delay,
Converting joy to pain?
Lost is our freedom,
When we sub... | Kind Are Her Answers | Renaissance | Love |
SAMUEL DANIEL | Love is a sickness full of woes,
All remedies refusing;
A plant that with most cutting grows,
Most barren with best using.
Why so?
More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoyed, it sighting cries,
Heigh ho!
Love is a torment of the mind,
A tempest everlasting;
And Jove hath made it of a kind
Not well, not... | Love Is A Sickness Full of Woes | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS HEYWOOD | Pack, clouds away! and welcome day!
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft, mount larks aloft
To give my love good-morrow!
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark Ill borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my love good-morrow;
To give my love good-morrow;
Notes ... | Love's Good-Morrow | Renaissance | Love |
JOHN DONNE | I scarce believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make it more.
But if medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But m... | Love's Growth | Renaissance | Love |
JOHN SKELTON | Ay, beshrew you! by my fay,
These wanton clerks be nice alway!
Avaunt, avaunt, my popinjay!
What, will ye do nothing but play?
Tilly, vally, straw, let be I say!
Gup, Christian Clout, gup, Jack of the Vale!
With Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale.
By God, ye be a pretty pode,
And I love you an whole cart-load.
St... | Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale | Renaissance | Love |
GIOVANNI BATTISTA GUARINI | Man of himselfs a little world, but joind
With woman, woman for that end designd,
(Hear cruel fair one whilst I this rehearse!)
He makes up then a complete universe.
Man, like this sublunary world, is born
The sport of two cross planets, love, and scorn:
Woman the other world resembles well,
In whose looks Heavn... | The Microcosm | Renaissance | Love |
SIR EDWARD DYER | The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,
The fly her spleen, the little sparks their heat;
The slender hairs cast shadows, though but small,
And bees have stings, although they be not great;
Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs;
And love is love, in beggars as in kings.
Where rivers smoothes... | A Modest Love | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS CAMPION | Come, O come, my lifes delight,
Let me not in languor pine!
Love loves no delay; thy sight,
The more enjoyed, the more divine:
O come, and take from me
The pain of being deprived of thee!
Thou all sweetness dost enclose,
Like a little world of bliss.
Beauty guards thy looks: the rose
In them pure and eternal... | My Lifes Delight | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS CAMPION | My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love,
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them. Heavens great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive,
But soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.
If all would lead their lives in love like me,... | My Sweetest Lesbia | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS CAMPION | Never love unless you can
Bear with all the faults of man:
Men sometimes will jealous be
Though but little cause they see;
And hang the head, as discontent,
And speak what straight they will repent.
Men that but one saint adore
Make a show of love to more.
Beauty must be scorned in none,
Though but truly ser... | Never Love Unless | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,
Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making,
And mournfully bewailing,
Her throat in tunes expresseth
What grief her breast oppresseth
For Tereus force on her chaste wi... | The Nightingale | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS CAMPION | Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups oerflow with wine,
Let well-turned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sigh... | Now Winter Nights Enlarge | Renaissance | Love |
SIR WALTER RALEGH | If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherds tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers d... | The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd | Renaissance | Love |
QUEEN ELIZABETH I | I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies whe... | On Monsieurs Departure | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss;
Who, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder,
Swelling on either side to want his bliss;
Between whose hills her head entombed is;
Where like a virtuous monument she lies,
To be admired of lewd unhallowed eyes.
Without the bed her ... | from The Rape of Lucrece | Renaissance | Love |
THOMAS LODGE | Love in my bosom like a bee
Doth suck his sweet;
Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet.
Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amidst my tender breast;
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest.
Ah, wanton, will ye?
And if I sleep, then percheth he
With pretty flight... | Rosalinds Madrigal | Renaissance | Love |
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY | Whose sense in so evil consort, their stepdame Nature lays,
That ravishing delight in them most sweet tunes do not raise;
Or if they do delight therein, yet are so cloyed with wit,
As with sententious lips to set a title vain on it:
O let them hear these sacred tunes, and learn in wonders schools,
To be (in things... | Seventh Song | Renaissance | Love |
EN JONSON | Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet slower, yet, O faintly, gentle springs!
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.
Droop herbs and flowers;
Fall grief in showers;
Our beauties are not ours.
O, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy h... | Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid.
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black co... | Song: Come away, come away, death | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That oer the green cornfield did pass,
In springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
Those pr... | Song: It was a lover and his lass | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no more
Of dumps... | Song: Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more | Renaissance | Love |
EN JONSON | Come, my Celia, let us prove,
While we can, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever;
He at length our good will sever.
Spend not then his gifts in vain.
Suns that set may rise again;
But if once we lose this light,
Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys?
Fame and rumor are but toys... | Song: to Celia [Come, my Celia, let us prove] | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.
Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness;
And, being helped, i... | Song: Who is Silvia? what is she | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beautys rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory;
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feedst thy lights flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself th... | Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beautys field,
Thy youths proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held.
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days
To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-ea... | Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
... | Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Shall I compare thee to a summers day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summers 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 n... | Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summers day? | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | A womans face with natures own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A womans gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false womens fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all hues in his controll... | Sonnet 20: A womans face with natures own hand painted | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy ... | Sonnet 35: No more be grieved at that which thou hast done | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed if thou this s... | Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor wars quick fire shall burn
... | Sonnet 55: Not marble nor the gilded monuments | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you.
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have b... | Sonnet 57: Being your slave, what should I do but tend | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality oer-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summers honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of battring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
No... | Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and w... | Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou knowst thy estimate.
The Charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so... | Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summers story tell,
Or fro... | Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes bur... | Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | O! never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself brin... | Sonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy powr
Dost hold times fickle glass his sickle hour,
Who hast by waning grown, and therein showst
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self growst
In nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skil... | Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy powr | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus;
More than enough am I that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will ... | Sonnet 135: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the worlds false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
... | Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote;
Nor are mine ears with thy tongues tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited... | Sonnet 141: In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes | Renaissance | Love |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul... | Sonnet 144: Two loves I have of comfort and despair | Renaissance | Love |
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