by Homer
Eyes, that displace 40
The neighbor diamond, and outface
That sunshine by their own sweet grace.
Tresses, that wear
Jewels but to declare
How much themselves more precious are: 45
Whose native ray
Can tame the wanton day
Of gems that in their bright shades play.
Each ruby there,
Or pearl that dare appear, 50
Be its own blush, be its own tear.
A well-tamed Heart,
For whose more noble smart
Love may be long choosing a dart.
Eyes, that bestow 55
Full quivers on love’s bow,
Yet pay less arrows than they owe.
Smiles, that can warm
The blood, yet teach a charm,
That chastity shall take no harm. 60
Blushes, that bin
The burnish of no sin,
Nor flames of aught too hot within.
Joys, that confess
Virtue their mistress, 65
And have no other head to dress.
Fears, fond and slight
As the coy bride’s, when night
First does the longing lover right.
Days, that need borrow 70
No part of their good morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow:
Days, that in spite
Of darkness, by the light
Of a clear mind are day all night. 75
Nights, sweet as they
Made short by lovers’ play,
Yet long by th’ absence of day.
Life, that dares send
A challenge to his end, 80
And when it comes, say, ‘Welcome, friend.’
Sydneian Showers
Of sweet discourse, whose powers
Can crown old Winter’s head with flowers.
Soft silken hours, 85
Open suns, shady bowers;
‘Bove all, nothing within that lowers.
Whate’er delight
Can make Day’s forehead bright
Or give down to the wings of night. 90
I wish her store
Of worth may leave her poor
Of wishes; and I wish — no more.
— Now, if Time knows
That Her, whose radiant brows 95
Weave them a garland of my vows;
Her, whose just bays
My future hopes can raise,
A trophy to her present praise;
Her that dares be 100
What these lines wish to see:
I seek no further, it is She.
’Tis She, and here
Lo! I unclothe and clear
My Wishes cloudy character. 105
May she enjoy it
Whose merit dare apply it.
But modesty dares still deny it!
Such worth as this is
Shall fix my flying Wishes, 110
And determine them to kisses.
Let her full glory,
My fancies, fly before ye;
Be ye my fictions: — but her story.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa
Richard Crashaw (1613–1649)
LIVE in these conquering leaves: live all the same;
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame;
Live here, great heart; and love, and die, and kill:
And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still.
Let this immortal life where’er it comes 5
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms.
Let mystic deaths wait on’t; and wise souls be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary! show here thy art
Upon this carcase of a hard cold heart; 10
Let all thy scatter’d shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy large books of day,
Combin’d against this breast at once break in,
And take away from me myself and sin;
This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be 15
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.
O thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love; 20
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;
By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning’s draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdom of that final kiss 25
That seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee His;
By all the Heav’n thou hast in Him
(Fair sister of the seraphim!);
By all of Him we have in thee;
Leave nothing of myself in me. 30
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may die!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Thomas Jordan
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Let Us Drink and Be Merry
Thomas Jordan (1612–1685)
LET us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice,
With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice!
The changeable world to our joy is unjust,
All treasure’s uncertain,
Then down with your dust! 5
In frolics dispose your pounds, shillings, and pence,
For we shall be nothing a hundred years hence.
We’ll sport and be free with Moll, Betty, and Dolly,
Have oysters and lobsters to cure melancholy:
Fish-dinners will make a man spring like a flea, 10
Dame Venus, love’s lady,
Was born of the sea:
With her and with Bacchus we’ll tickle the sense,
For we shall be past it a hundred years hence.
Your most beautiful bride who with garlands is crown’d 15
And kills with each glance as she treads on the ground.
Whose lightness and brightness doth shine in such splendour
That one but the stars
Are thought fit to attend her,
Though now she be pleasant and sweet to the sense, 20
Will be damnable mouldy a hundred years hence.
Then why should we turmoil in cares and in fears,
Turn all our tranquill’ty to sighs and to tears?
Let’s eat, drink, and play till the worms do corrupt us,
’Tis certain, Post mortem 25
Nulla voluptas.
For health, wealth and beauty, wit, learning and sense,
Must all come to nothing a hundred years hence.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Abraham Cowley
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
A Supplication
Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
AWAKE, awake, my Lyre!
And tell thy silent master’s humble tale
In sounds that may prevail;
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:
Though so exalted she 5
And I so lowly be
Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
Hark, how the strings awake:
And, though the moving hand approach not near,
Themselves with awful fear 10
A kind of numerous trembling make.
Now all thy forces try;
Now all thy charms apply;
Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.
Weak Lyre! thy virtue s
ure 15
Is useless here, since thou art only found
To cure, but not to wound,
And she to wound, but not to cure.
Too weak too wilt thou prove
My passion to remove; 20
Physic to other ills, thou’rt nourishment to love.
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre!
For thou canst never tell my humble tale
In sounds that will prevail,
Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire; 25
All thy vain mirth lay by,
Bid thy strings silent lie,
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Cheer Up, My Mates
(Sitting and drinking in the chair made out of the relics of Sir Francis Drake’s ship.)
Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
CHEER up, my mates, the wind does fairly blow;
Clap on more sail, and never spare;
Farewell, all lands, for now we are
In the wide sea of drink, and merrily we go.
Bless me, ’tis hot! another bowl of wine, 5
And we shall cut the burning Line:
Hey, boys! she scuds away, and by my head I know
We round the world are sailing now.
What dull men are those who tarry at home,
When abroad they might wantonly roam, 10
And gain such experience, and spy, too,
Such countries and wonders, as I do!
But pr’ythee, good pilot, take heed what you do,
And fail not to touch at Peru!
With gold there the vessel we’ll store, 15
And never, and never be poor,
No, never be poor any more.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Drinking
Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
THE THIRSTY earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair;
The sea itself (which one would think 5
Should have but little need of drink)
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So fill’d that they o’erflow the cup.
The busy Sun (and one would guess
By ‘s drunken fiery face no less) 10
Drinks up the sea, and when he’s done,
The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun:
They drink and dance by their own light,
They drink and revel all the night:
Nothing in Nature’s sober found, 15
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high,
Fill all the glasses there — for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why? 20
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
On the Death of Mr. William Hervey
Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
IT was a dismal and a fearful night:
Scarce could the Morn drive on th’ unwilling Light,
When Sleep, Death’s image, left my troubled breast
By something liker Death possest.
My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow, 5
And on my soul hung the dull weight
Of some intolerable fate.
What bell was that? Ah me! too much I know!
My sweet companion and my gentle peer,
Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here, 10
Thy end for ever and my life to moan?
O, thou hast left me all alone!
Thy soul and body, when death’s agony
Besieged around thy noble heart,
Did not with more reluctance part 15
Than I, my dearest Friend, do part from thee.
My dearest Friend, would I had died for thee!
Life and this world henceforth will tedious be:
Nor shall I know hereafter what to do
If once my griefs prove tedious too. 20
Silent and sad I walk about all day,
As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by
Where their hid treasures lie;
Alas! my treasure’s gone; why do I stay?
Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights, 25
How oft unwearied have we spent the nights,
Till the Ledæan stars, so famed for love,
Wonder’d at us from above!
We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine;
But search of deep Philosophy, 30
Wit, Eloquence, and Poetry —
Arts which I loved, for they, my Friend, were thine.
Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say
Have ye not seen us walking every day?
Was there a tree about which did not know 35
The love betwixt us two?
Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade;
Or your sad branches thicker join
And into darksome shades combine,
Dark as the grave wherein my Friend is laid! 40
Large was his soul: as large a soul as e’er
Submitted to inform a body here;
High as the place ’twas shortly in Heaven to have.
But low and humble as his grave.
So high that all the virtues there did come, 45
As to their chiefest seat
Conspicuous and great;
So low, that for me too it made a room.
Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught
As if for him Knowledge had rather sought; 50
Nor did more learning ever crowded lie
In such a short mortality.
Whene’er the skilful youth discoursed or writ,
Still did the notions throng
About his eloquent tongue; 55
Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit.
His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit,
Yet never did his God or friends forget;
And when deep talk and wisdom came in view,
Retired, and gave to them their due. 60
For the rich help of books he always took,
Though his own searching mind before
Was so with notions written o’er,
As if wise Nature had made that her book.
With as much zeal, devotion, piety, 65
He always lived, as other saints do die.
Still with his soul severe account he kept,
Weeping all debts out ere he slept.
Then down in peace and innocence he lay,
Like the Sun’s laborious light, 70
Which still in water sets at night,
Unsullied with his journey of the day.
But happy Thou, ta’en from this frantic age,
Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage!
A fitter time for Heaven no soul e’er chose — 75
The place now only free from those.
There ‘mong the blest thou dost for ever shine;
And whereso’er thou casts thy view
Upon that white and radiant crew,
See’st not a soul clothed with more light than thine. 80
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Alexander Brome
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Resolve
Alexander Brome (1620–1666)
TELL me not of a face that’s fair,
Nor lip and cheek that’s red,
Nor of the tresses of her hair,
Nor curls in order laid,
Nor of a rare seraphic voice 5
That like an angel sings;
Though if I were to take my choice
I would have al
l these things:
But if that thou wilt have me love,
And it must be a she, 10
The only argument can move
Is that she will love me.
The glories of your ladies be
But metaphors of things,
And but resemble what we see 15
Each common object brings.
Roses out-red their lips and cheeks,
Lilies their whiteness stain;
What fool is he that shadows seeks
And may the substance gain? 20
Then if thou’lt have me love a lass,
Let it be one that’s kind:
Else I’m a servant to the glass
That’s with Canary lined.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Andrew Marvell
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
A Garden
Written after the Civil Wars
Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
SEE how the flowers, as at parade,
Under their colours stand display’d:
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink, and rose.
But when the vigilant patrol 5
Of stars walks round about the pole,
Their leaves, that to the stalks are curl’d
Seem to their staves the ensigns furl’d.
Then in some flower’s belovèd hut