by Homer
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
O ME! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight:
Or if they have, where is my judgment fled
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, 5
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s: No,
How can it? O how can love’s eye be true,
That is so vex’d with watching and with tears? 10
No marvel then though I mistake my view:
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep’st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Robert Greene
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Connent
Robert Greene (1560–1592)
SWEET are the thoughts that savour of content,
The quiet mind is richer than a crown,
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent,
The poor estate scorns Fortune’s angry frown:
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, 5
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.
The homely house that harbours quiet rest,
The cottage that affords no pride nor care,
The mean that ‘grees with country music best,
The sweet consort of mirth and modest fare, 10
Obscurèd life sets down a type of bliss:
A mind content both crown and kingdom is.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Richard Barnfield
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Nightingale
Richard Barnfield (1574–1627)
AS it fell upon a day
In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap and birds did sing, 5
Trees did grow and plants did spring;
Every thing did banish moan
Save the Nightingale alone.
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Lean’d her breast up-till a thorn, 10
And there sung the dolefull’st ditty
That to hear it was great pity.
Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry;
Tereu, tereu, by and by:
That to hear her so complain 15
Scarce I could from tears refrain;
For her griefs so lively shown
Made me think upon mine own.
— Ah, thought I, thou mourn’st in vain,
None takes pity on thy pain: 20
Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee,
Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee;
King Pandion, he is dead,
All thy friends are lapp’d in lead:
All thy fellow birds do sing 25
Careless of thy sorrowing:
Even so, poor bird, like thee
None alive will pity me.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Thomas Campion
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Cherry-ripe
Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
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 5
Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds fill’d with snow; 10
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy
Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.
Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill 15
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Follow your Saint
Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
FOLLOW your saint, follow with accents sweet!
Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet!
There, wrapt in cloud of sorrow, pity move,
And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:
But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, 5
Then burst with sighing in her sight, and ne’er return again!
All that I sung still to her praise did tend;
Still she was first, still she my songs did end;
Yet she my love and music both doth fly,
The music that her echo is and beauty’s sympathy: 10
Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight!
It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
When to Her Lute Corinna Sings
Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
WHEN to her lute Corinna sings,
Her voice revives the leaden strings,
And doth in highest notes appear,
As any challenged echo clear;
But when she doth of mourning speak, 5
E’en with her sighs, the strings do break,
And as her lute doth live or die,
Led by her passion, so must I:
For when of pleasure she doth sing,
My thoughts enjoy a sudden spring, 10
But if she doth of sorrow speak,
E’en from my heart the strings do break.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Follow thy Fair Sun
Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
FOLLOW thy fair sun, unhappy shadow,
Though thou be black as night,
And she made all of light;
Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!
Follow her, whose light thy light depriveth! 5
Though here thou livest disgraced,
And she in heaven is placed;
Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth!
Follow those pure beams, whose beauty burneth!
That so have scorchèd thee; 10
As thou still black must be,
Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth!
Follow her, while yet her glory shineth!
There comes a luckless night
That will dim all her light; 15
And this the black unhappy shade divineth.
Follow still, since so thy Fates ordainèd!
The sun must have his shade,
Till both at once do fade;
The sun still proved, the shadow still disdainèd! 20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Turn All thy Thoughts to Eyes
Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
TURN all thy thoughts to eyes,
Turn all thy hairs to ears,
Change all thy friends to spies
And all thy joys to fears:
True love will yet be free 5
In spite of jealousy.
Turn darkness into day,
Conjectures into truth,
Be
lieve what th’ envious say,
Let age interpret youth: 10
True love will yet be free
In spite of jealousy.
Wrest every word and look,
Rack every hidden thought,
Or fish with golden hook; 15
True love cannot be caught:
For that will still be free
In spite of jealousy.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Integer Vitae
Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
THE MAN of life upright,
Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity;
The man whose silent days 5
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude,
Nor sorrow discontent;
That man needs neither towers
Nor armour for defence, 10
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunder’s violence:
He only can behold
With unaffrighted eyes
The horrors of the deep 15
And terrors of the skies.
Thus, scorning all the cares
That fate or fortune brings,
He makes the heaven his book,
His wisdom heavenly things; 20
Good thoughts his only friends,
His wealth a well-spent age,
The earth his sober inn
And quiet pilgrimage.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Robert Devereux,
Earl of Essex
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
A Passion of my Lord of Essex
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1566–1601)
HAPPY were he could finish forth his fate
In some unhaunted desert, where, obscure
From all society, from love and hate
Of worldly folk; then might he sleep secure;
Then wake again, and ever give God praise, 5
Content with hip, with haws, and bramble-berry;
In contemplation passing all his days,
And change of holy thoughts to make him merry;
Who, when he dies, his tomb might be a bush,
Where harmless Robin dwells with gentle thrush. 10
— Happy were he!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Sir Henry Wotton
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Elizabeth of Bohemia
Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639)
YOU meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies,
What are you, when the Moon shall rise? 5
Ye violets that first appear,
By your pure purple mantles known
Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the spring were all your own, —
What are you, when the Rose is blown? 10
Ye curious chanters of the wood
That warble forth dame Nature’s lays,
Thinking your passions understood
By your weak accents; what’s your praise
When Philomel her voice doth raise? 15
So when my Mistress shall be seen
In sweetness of her looks and mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,
Tell me, if she were not design’d
Th’ eclipse and glory of her kind? 20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Character of a Happy Life
Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639)
HOW happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another’s will;
Whose armour is his honest thought
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are, 5
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Not tied unto the world with care
Of public fame, or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise
Or vice; Who never understood 10
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:
Who hath his life from rumours freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed 15
Nor ruin make oppressors great;
Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a well-chosen book or friend: 20
— This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Edward de Vere,
Earl of Oxford
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
A Renunciation
Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (1550–1604)
IF women could be fair, and yet not fond,
Or that their love were firm, not fickle still,
I would not marvel that they make men bond
By service long to purchase their good will;
But when I see how frail those creatures are, 5
I muse that men forget themselves so far.
To mark the choice they make, and how they change,
How oft from Phœbus they do flee to Pan;
Unsettled still, like haggards wild they range,
These gentle birds that fly from man to man; 10
Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist,
And let them fly, fair fools, which way they list?
Yet for disport we fawn and flatter both,
To pass the time when nothing else can please,
And train them to our lure with subtle oath, 15
Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease;
And then we say when we their fancy try,
To play with fools, O what a fool was I!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ben Jonson
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Simplex Munditiis
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
STILL to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdr’d, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art’s hid causes are not found, 5
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me 10
Than all th’ adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Triumph
Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
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 5
Unto her beauty;
And enamour’d do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,
That they still were to run by her side,
Through swords, thr
ough seas, whither she would ride. 10
Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love’s world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love’s star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead’s smoother 15
Than words that soothe her;
And from her arch’d brows such a grace
Sheds itself through the face,
As alone there triumphs to the life
All the gain, all the good, of the elements’ strife. 20
Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touch’d it?
Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutch’d it?
Have you felt the wool of beaver, 25
Or swan’s down ever?
Or have smelt o’ the bud o’ the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she! 30