by Homer
Yet no more can be due to me,
Than at the bargain made was meant:
If, then, thy gift of love was partial,
That some to me, some should to others fall, 10
Dear, I shall never have it all.
Or if then thou gavest me all,
All was but all which thou hadst then;
But if in thy heart since there be, or shall
New love created be by other men, 15
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
In sighs, in oaths, in letters outbid me,
This new love may beget new fears;
For this love was not vowed by thee,
And yet it was, thy gift being general: 20
The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.
Yet I would not have all yet;
He that hath all can have no more;
And since my love doth every day admit 25
New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store.
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart;
If thou canst give it, then thou never gav’st it:
Love’s riddles are that, though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing sav’st it, 30
But we will love a way more liberal
Than changing hearts, — to join them; so we shall
Be one, an one another’s All.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Love’s Deity
John Donne (1573–1631)
I LONG to talk with some old lover’s ghost,
Who died before the god of love was born:
I cannot think that he, that then loved most,
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produced a destiny, 5
And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,
I must love her that loves not me.
Sure they which made him god meant not so much,
Nor he in his young godhead practised it;
But when an even flame two hearts did touch, 10
His office was indulgently to fit
Actives to passives; correspondency
Only his subject was; it cannot be
Love, if I love who loves not me.
But every modern god will now extend 15
His vast prerogative as far as Jove;
To rage, to lust, to write too, to commend;
All is the purlieu of the god of love.
O were we wakened by his tyranny
To ungod this child again, it could not be 20
I should love her that loves not me.
Rebel and atheist, too, why murmur I,
As though I felt the worst that love could do?
Love may make me leave loving, or might try
A deeper plague, to make her love me too, 25
Which, since she loves before, I am loath to see,
Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,
If she whom I love should love me.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Stay, O Sweet
John Donne (1573–1631)
STAY, O sweet, and do not rise!
The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
The day breaks not: it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay! or else my joys will die, 5
And perish in their infancy.
’Tis true, ’tis day: what though it be?
O, wilt thou therefore rise from me?
Why should we rise because ’tis light?
Did we lie down because ’twas night? 10
Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,
Should in despite of light keep us together.
Light hath no tongue, but is all eye.
If it could speak as well as spy,
This were the worst that it could say: — 15
That, being well, I fain would stay,
And that I lov’d my heart and honour so,
That I would not from him, that had them, go.
Must business thee from hence remove?
Oh, that’s the worse disease of love! 20
The poor, the fool, the false, love can
Admit, but not the busied man.
He, which hath business, and makes love, doth do
Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Blossom
John Donne (1573–1631)
LITTLE think’st thou, poor flower,
Whom I have watched six or seven days,
And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour
Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise,
And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough, 5
— Little think’st thou
That it will freeze anon, and that I shall
To-morrow find thee fall’n, or not at all.
Little think’st thou, poor heart,
That labourest yet to nestle thee, 10
And think’st by hovering here to get a part
In a forbidden or forbidding tree,
And hop’st her stiffness by long siege to bow,
— Little think’st thou
That thou, to-morrow, ere the sun doth wake, 15
Must with the sun and me a journey take.
But thou, which lov’st to be
Subtle to plague thyself, wilt say —
“Alas! if you must go, what’s that to me?
Here lies my business, and here will I stay: 20
You go to friends, whose love and means present
Various content
To your eyes, ears, and taste, and every part:
If then your body go, what need your heart?”
Well, then, stay here: but know 25
When thou hast said and done thy most,
A naked thinking heart, that makes no show,
Is to a woman but a kind of ghost;
How shall she know my heart? Or, having none,
Know thee for one? 30
Practice may make her know some other part,
But take my word, she doth not know a heart.
Meet me in London, then,
Twenty days hence, and thou shalt see
Me fresher and more fat, by being with men, 35
Than if I had stay’d still with her and thee.
For God’s sake, if you can, be you so too:
I will give you
There to another friend, whom you shall find
As glad to have my body as my mind. 40
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Good Morrow
John Donne (1573–1631)
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 snored we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be; 5
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, 10
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, 15
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west?
W
hatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I 20
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Present in Absence
John Donne (1573–1631)
ABSENCE, hear thou my protestation
Against thy strength,
Distance, and length;
Do what thou canst for alteration:
For hearts of truest mettle 5
Absence doth join, and Time doth settle.
Who loves a mistress of such quality,
His mind hath found
Affection’s ground
Beyond time, place, and all mortality. 10
To hearts that cannot vary
Absence is present, Time doth tarry.
My senses want their outward motion
Which now within
Reason doth win, 15
Redoubled by her secret notion:
Like rich men that take pleasure
In hiding more than handling treasure.
By absence this good means I gain,
That I can catch her, 20
Where none can watch her,
In some close corner of my brain:
There I embrace and kiss her;
And so enjoy her and none miss her.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Sun Rising
John Donne (1573–1631)
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.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Joshua Sylvester
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Love’s Omnipresence
Joshua Sylvester (1563–1618)
WERE I as base as is the lowly plain,
And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,
Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain
Ascend to heaven, in honour of my Love.
Were I as high as heaven above the plain, 5
And you, my Love, as humble and as low
As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
Whereso’er you were, with you my love should go.
Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,
My love should shine on you like to the sun, 10
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes
Till heaven wax’d blind, and till the world were done.
Whereso’er I am, below, or else above you,
Whereso’er you are, my heart shall truly love you.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
William Alexander,
Earl of Stirling
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
To Aurora
William Alexander, Earl of Stirling (1567–1640)
O IF thou knew’st how thou thyself dost harm,
And dost prejudge thy bliss, and spoil my rest;
Then thou would’st melt the ice out of thy breast
And thy relenting heart would kindly warm.
O if thy pride did not our joys controul, 5
What world of loving wonders should’st thou see!
For if I saw thee once transform’d in me,
Then in thy bosom I would pour my soul;
Then all my thoughts should in thy visage shine,
And if that aught mischanced thou should’st not moan 10
Nor bear the burthen of thy griefs alone;
No, I would have my share in what were thine:
And whilst we thus should make our sorrows one,
This happy harmony would make them none.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Richard Corbet
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Farewell, Rewards and Fairies
Richard Corbet (1582–1635)
FAREWELL, rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.
And though they sweep their hearths no less 5
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?
Lament, lament, old Abbeys,
The Fairies’ lost command! 10
They did but change Priests’ babies,
But some have changed your land.
And all your children, sprung from thence,
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as Changelings ever since 15
For love of your demains.
At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth
These pretty ladies had; 20
When Tom came home from labour,
Or Cis to milking rose,
Then merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.
Witness those rings and roundelays 25
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary’s days
On many a grassy plain;
But since of late, Elizabeth,
And later, James came in, 30
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath been.
By which we note the Fairies
Were of the old Profession.
Their songs were ‘Ave Mary’s’, 35
Their dances were Procession.
But now, alas, they all are dead;
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for Religion fled;
Or else they take their ease. 40
A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure!
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punished, sure;
It was a just and Christian deed 45
To pinch such black and blue.
Oh how the commonwealth doth want
Such Justices as you!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Thomas Heywood
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Pack, Clouds, Away
Thomas Heywood (d. 1650)
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, 5
Notes from the lark I’ll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my Love good-morrow;
To give my Love good-morrow
Notes from them both I’ll borrow. 10
Wake from thy nest, Robin-red-breast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each hill, let music shrill
Give my fair Love good-morrow!
Blackbird and thrush in every bush, 15
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow!
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves
Sing my fair Love good-morrow;
To give my Love good-morrow
Sing, birds, in every furrow! 20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Thomas Dekker
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Country Glee
Thomas Dekker (1570–1614)