Prayer the Church’s banquet, angels’ age,

All creatures have their joy: and man hath his.Yet if we rightly measure,Man’s joy and pleasureRather hereafter, than in present, is.To this life things of senseMake their pretense:In th’other Angels have a right by birth:Man ties them both alone,And makes them one,With th’one hand touching heav’n, with th’other earth.In soul he mounts and flies,In flesh…

Both sweet and bright.Beauty in thee takes up her place,And dates her letters from thy face,When she doth write.A fine aspect in fit array,Neither too mean nor yet too gay,Shows who is best.Outlandish looks may not compare,For all they either painted are,Or else undress’d.She on the hills which wantonlyAllureth all, in hope to beBy her…

To swaddle infants, whose young breathScarce knows the way;Those clouts are little winding-sheets,Which do consign and send them unto Death.When boyes go first to bed,They step into their voluntarie graves;Sleep binds them fast; onely their breathMakes them not dead:Successive nights, like rolling waves,Convey them quickly who are bound for Death.When Youth is frank and free,And…

My thoughts are working like a busy flame,Until their cockatrice they hatch and bring:And when they once have perfected their draughts,My words take fire from my inflamed thoughts.My words take fire fro m my inflamed thoughts,Which spit it forth like the Sicilian hill.They vent their wares, and pass them with their faults,And by their breathing…

You took me thence, and in your house of pleasureA dainty lodging me assigned.Now I in you without a body move,Rising and falling with your wings:We both together sweetly live and love,Yet say sometimes, ‘God help poor Kings’.Comfort, I’ll die; for if you post from meSure I shall do so, and much more:But if I…

Sorrow hath chang’d its note: such is his willWho changeth all things, as him pleaseth best.For well he knows, if but one grief and smartAmong my many had his full career,Sure it would carry with it ev’n my heart,And both would run until they found a bierTo fetch the body; both being due to grief.But…