by Homer
We die, 15
As your hours do, and dry
Away
Like to the Summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew
Ne’er to be found again. 20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
To Blossoms
Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile, 5
And go at last.
What, were ye born to be
An hour or half’s delight,
And so to bid good-night?
’Twas pity Nature brought ye forth 10
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.
But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne’er so brave: 15
And after they have shown their pride
Like you, awhile, they glide
Into the grave.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Corinna’s Maying
Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
GET up, get up for shame! The blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see 5
The dew-bespangling herb and tree!
Each flower has wept and bow’d toward the east,
Above an hour since, yet you not drest;
Nay! not so much as out of bed?
When all the birds have matins said, 10
And sung their thankful hymns, ’tis sin,
Nay, profanation, to keep in,
Whenas a thousand virgins on this day
Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.
Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seen 15
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair:
Fear not; the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you: 20
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.
Come, and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night,
And Titan on the eastern hill 25
Retires himself, or else stands still
Till you come forth! Wash, dress, be brief in praying:
Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying.
Come, my Corinna, come; and coming, mark
How each field turns a street, each street a park, 30
Made green and trimm’d with trees! see how
Devotion gives each house a bough
Or branch! each porch, each door, ere this,
An ark, a tabernacle is,
Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove, 35
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields, and we not see ‘t?
Come, we’ll abroad: and let’s obey
The proclamation made for May, 40
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying
But, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.
There’s not a budding boy or girl this day
But is got up and gone to bring in May.
A deal of youth, ere this, is come 45
Back, and with white-thorn laden home.
Some have dispatch’d their cakes and cream,
Before that we have left to dream:
And some have wept and woo’d, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth: 50
Many a green-gown has been given,
Many a kiss, both odd and even:
Many a glance, too, has been sent
From out the eye, love’s firmament:
Many a jest told of the keys betraying 55
This night, and locks pick’d: yet we’re not a-Maying.
Come, let us go, while we are in our prime,
And take the harmless folly of the time!
We shall grow old apace, and die
Before we know our liberty. 60
Our life is short, and our days run
As fast away as does the sun.
And, as a vapour or a drop of rain,
Once lost, can ne’er be found again,
So when or you or I are made 65
A fable, song, or fleeting shade,
All love, all liking, all delight
Lies drowned with us in endless night.
Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying. 70
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Francis Quarles
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
An Ecstasy
Francis Quarles (1592–1644)
E’EN like two little bank-dividing brooks,
That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,
And having ranged and search’d a thousand nooks,
Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,
Where in a greater current they conjoin: 5
So I my Best-belovèd’s am; so He is mine.
E’en so we met; and after long pursuit,
E’en so we joined; we both became entire;
No need for either to renew a suit,
For I was flax, and He was flames of fire: 10
Our firm-united souls did more than twine;
So I my Best-belovèd’s am; so He is mine.
If all those glittering Monarchs, that command
The servile quarters of this earthly ball,
Should tender in exchange their shares of land, 15
I would not change my fortunes for them all:
Their wealth is but a counter to my coin:
The world’s but theirs; but my Belovèd’s mine.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
George Herbert
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Love
George Herbert (1593–1633)
LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning 5
If I lacked anything.
‘A guest,’ I answered, ‘worthy to be here:’
Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.’ 10
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’
‘Truth, Lord; but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’ 15
‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Virtue
George Herbert (1593–1633)
SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright!
The bridal of the earth and sky —
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.
Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave 5
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
T
hy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie, 10
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season’d timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal, 15
Then chiefly lives.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Elixir
George Herbert (1593–1633)
TEACH me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything
To do it as for Thee.
Not rudely, as a beast 5
To run into an action;
But still to make Thee prepossest
And give it his perfection.
A man that looks on glass
On it may stay his eye, 10
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heaven espy.
All may of Thee partake
Nothing can be so mean
Which with his tincture, ‘for Thy sake,’ 15
Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine. 20
This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold,
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Collar
George Herbert (1593–1633)
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. 5
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 10
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? 15
All wasted?
Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasure: leave thy cold dispute 20
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, 25
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 30
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!’ 35
And I replied, ‘My Lord!’
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Flower
George Herbert (1593–1633)
HOW fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are thy returns! Ev’n as the flowers in Spring,
To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring;
Grief melts away 5
Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.
Who would have thought my shrivell’d heart
Could have recover’d greenness? It was gone
Quite under ground; as flowers depart 10
To see their mother-root, when they have blown,
Where they together
All the hard weather,
Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
These are Thy wonders, Lord of power, 15
Killing and quick’ning, bringing down to Hell
And up to Heaven in an hour;
Making a chiming of a passing bell.
We say amiss
This or that is; 20
Thy word is all, if we could spell.
O that I once past changing were,
Fast in thy Paradise where no flower can wither!
Many a Spring I shoot up fair,
Off’ring at Heaven, growing and groaning thither; 25
Nor doth my flower
Want a Spring shower,
My sins and I joining together.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Easter Song
George Herbert (1593–1633)
I GOT me flowers to strew Thy way,
I got me boughs off many a tree;
But Thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee.
The sun arising in the East, 5
Though he give light and th’ East perfume,
If they should offer to contest
With Thy arising, they presume.
Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavour? 10
We count three hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Pulley
George Herbert (1593–1633)
WHEN God at first made Man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by —
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can;
Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie,
Contract into a span. 5
So strength first made a way,
Then beauty flow’d, then wisdom, honour, pleasure;
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay. 10
For if I should (said He)
Bestow this jewel also on My creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be. 15
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast. 20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
John Milton
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Paradise Lost: Book 1
John Milton (1608-1674)
THE ARGUMENT
This first Book proposes, first in brief, the whole Subject, Mans disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was plac’t: Then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many Legions of Angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his Crew into the great Deep. Which action past over, the Poem hasts into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell, describ’d here, not in the Center (for Heaven and Earth may be suppos’d as yet not made, certainly not yet accurst) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest call’d Chaos: Here Satan with his Angels lying on the burning Lake, thunder-struck and astonisht, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in Order and Dignity lay by him; they confer of thir miserable fall. Satan awakens all his
Legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded; They rise, thir Numbers, array of Battel, thir chief Leaders nam’d, according to the Idols known afterwards in Canaan and the Countries adjoyning. To these Satan directs his Speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new World and new kind of Creature to be created, according to an ancient Prophesie or report in Heaven; for that Angels were long before this visible Creation, was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this Prophesie, and what to determin thereon he refers to a full Councel. What his Associates thence attempt. Pandemonium the Palace of Satan rises, suddenly built out of the Deep: The infernal Peers there sit in Councel.
Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, 5
Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill 10
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s Brook that flow’d
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian Mount, while it pursues 15