Dear, why should you command me to my rest

Ravish’d a world beyond the farthest thought,And knowing more than ever hath been taught,That I am only starv’d in my desire.Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire,Aiming at things exceeding all perfection,To Wisdom’s self to minister correction,That I am only starv’d in my desire.Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire,Though my conceit I…

Against these folks, that think themselves so wise,I thus oppose my Reason’s forces wholly,Though I give more than well affords my state,In which expense the most suppose me vain,Which yields them nothing at the easiest rate,Yet at this price returns me treble gain.They value not, unskillful how to use,And I give much, because I gain…

The crystal Trent for fords and fish renown’d,And Avon’s fame to Albion’s cliffs is rais’d;Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee,York many wonders of her Ouse can tell,The Peak her Dove, whose banks so fertile be,And Kent will say her Medway doth excell;Cotswold commends her Isis to the Thame,Our Northern borders boast of Tweed’s fair flood,Our…

Sometimes what Schoolmen scarcely can decide,Nor yet wise Reason absolutely knows.In making trial of a murther wrought,If the vile actors of the heinous deedNear the dead body happily be brought,Oft it hath been prov’d the breathless corse will bleed.She’s coming near, that my poor heart hath slain,Long since departed, to the world no more,The ancient…

My breast the forge including all the heat;Love is the fuel which maintains the fire;My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth,Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning;Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth,In grievous passions my woes still bemoaning;My eyes with tears against the fire striving,Whose scorching gleed my heart to cinders turneth,But…

Nor now to prove our chanceLonger will tarry;But putting to the main,At Caux, the mouth of Seine,With all his martial trainLanded King Harry.And taking many a fort,Furnish’d in warlike sort,Marcheth towards AgincourtIn happy hour;Skirmishing day by dayWith those that stopp’d his way,Where the French gen’ral layWith all his power.Which, in his height of pride,King Henry…

Who, having now brought on his end with care,Leaves to his son all he had heap’d together;This new rich novice, lavish of his chest,To one man gives, doth on another spend,Then here he riots, yet among the restHaps to lend some to one true honest friend.Thy gifts thou in obscurity dost waste,False friends thy kindness,…

Three Nines there are, to every one a Nine,One number of the Earth, the other both divine;One woman now makes three odd numbers ev’n.Nine Orders first of Angels be in Heav’n,Nine Muses do with Learning still frequent:These with the Gods are ever resident;Nine Worthy Women to the world were giv’n.My Worthy One to these Nine…

Else should my lines glide on the waves of RheneAnd crown the Pyrens with my living song.But, bounded thus, to Scotland get you forth,Thence take you wing unto the Orcades;There let my verse get glory in the North,Making my sighs to thaw the frozen seas;And let the Bards within that Irish isle,To whom my Muse…

And why these giddy metaphors I use,Leaving the path the greater part do go.I will resolve you: I am lunatic,And ever this in madmen you shall find,What they last thought of when the brain grew sickIn most distraction they keep that in mind.Thus talking idly in this bedlam fit,Reason and I, you must conceive, are…

The blessed bed whereon the Muses lay,Beauty of Greece, the pride of Asia,Whence Archelaus, whom times historify,First unto Athens brought philosophy:In this fair region on a goodly plain,Stretching her bounds unto the bord’ring main,The mountain Latmus overlooks the sea,Smiling to see the ocean billows play:Latmus, where young Endymion used to keepHis fairest flock of silver-fleeced…

That where those two clear sparkling eyes are plac’dOnly two loop-holes then I might behold;That lovely, arched, ivory, polish’d browDefac’d with wrinkles that I might but see;Thy dainty hair, so curl’d and crisped now,Like grizzled moss upon some aged tree;Thy cheek, now flush with roses, sunk and lean;Thy lips with age as any wafer thin;Thy…