Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,

The ant and the mole sit both in a hole,And frog peeps out o’the fountain;The dogs they do bay,and the timbrels play,The spindle is now a-turning;The moon it is red,and the stars are fled,And all the sky is a-burning.

As not the world can praise too much,Yet ’tis your Virtue now I raise.A virtue, like allay so goneThroughout your form as, though that moveAnd draw and conquer all men’s love,This subjects you to love of one.Wherein you triumph yet-because‘Tis of your flesh, and that you useThe noblest freedom, not to chooseAgainst or faith or…

on the grey Autumn wind and its coursing,’all afternoon wasted in bed like this?’’Because we cannot lie all night together.’’Yes,’ she said, satisfied at my reasoning,but going on to search her cruel mindfor better excuses to leave my narrow bed.Too many flesh suppersAbstracted in art,in architecture,in scholars’ detail;absorbed by music,by minutiae,by sad trivia;all to efface…

in which a small child,my daughter, appeared at the doorof a half-lit roomwhere late one night I wroteat a heavy desk.And though interruptionwas hardly welcomeI took her to myself,just as the poem,comforted this daughteruntil she found peace.The poems as the childrencome as they will come.

Makes serious use of all great trade he know.He speaks to men with a Rhinocerotes’ nose,Which he thinks great; and so reads verses too,And that is done as he saw great men do.He has timpanies of business in his face,And can forget men’s names with a great grace.He will both argue and discourse in oaths,Both…

Each that draws is a swan or a dove,And well the car Love guideth.As she goes, all hearts do dutyUnto her beauty;And, enamoured, do wish, so they mightBut enjoy such a sight,That they still were to run by her side,Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.Do but look on her eyes, they do lightAll…

Seven years thou’wert lent to me, and I thee pay,Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.O, could I lose all father now! For whyWill man lament the state he should envy?To have so soon ‘scap’d world’s and flesh’s rage,And, if no other misery, yet age?Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say here doth lieBen…

And, though so neere the Citie, and the Court,Art tane with neithers vice, nor sport:That at great times, art no ambitious guestOf Sheriffes dinner, or Maiors feast.Nor com’st to view the better cloth of State;The richer hangings, or crowne-plate;Nor throng’st (when masquing is) to have a fightOf the short braverie of the night;To view the…

(How nothing’s that!), to whom my country owesThe great renown and name wherewith she goes;Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave,More high, more holy, that she more would crave.What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things!What sight in searching the most antique springs!What weight and what authority in thy speech!Man…

Epigrams, and named of me,Thou should’st be bold, licentious, full of gall,Wormwood and sulphur, sharp and toothed withal,Become a petulant thing, hurl ink and witAs madmen stones, not caring whom they hit.Deceive their malice who could wish it so,And by thy wiser temper let men knowThou art not covetous of least self-fameMade from the hazard…

In a little? Reader, stay.Underneath this stone doth lieAs much Beauty as could die:Which in life did harbour giveTo more Virtue than doth live.If at all she had a fault,Leave it buried in this vault.One name was Elizabeth,The other, let it sleep with death:Fitter, where it died, to tellThan that it lived at all. Farewell.

How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray,And hath it in his powers to make his way!This world death’s region is, the other life’s:And here it should be one of our first strifes,So to front death, as men might judge us past it:For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.