SWEET were the joys that both might like and last;

Sweet embraces, such delights,As will shorten tedious nights.Think that beauty will not stayWith you always, but away,And that tyrannizing faceThat now holds such perfect graceWill both changed and ruined be;So frail is all things as we see,So subject unto conquering Time.Then gather flowers in their prime,Let them not fall and perish so;Nature her bounties did…

These pretty pleasures might me move,To live with thee, and be thy love.Time drives the flocks from field to fold,When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,And Philomel becometh dumb,The rest complains of cares to come.The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,To wayward winter reckoning yields,A honey tongue, a heart of gall,Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s…

Sleep, after our short light,One everlasting night.

Met you not with my true loveBy the way as you came?‘How shall I know your true love,That have met many one,I went to the holy land,That have come, that have gone?’She is neither white, nor brown,But as the heavens fair;There is none hath a form so divineIn the earth, or the air.‘Such a one…

An envious boy, from whom all cares arise,A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed,A way of error, a temple full of treason,In all effects contrary unto reason.A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers,Mother of sighs, and murderer of repose,A sea of sorrows whence are drawn such showersAs moisture lend to every grief that grows;A…

Where pleasure and repentance dwell;It is, perhaps, the sauncing bellThat tolls all into heaven or hell;And this is Love, as I hear tell.Yet what is Love, I prithee, say?It is a work on holiday,It is December matched with May,When lusty bloods in fresh arrayHear ten months after of the play;And this is Love, as I…