Ye have been fresh and green,Ye have been fill’d with flowers;And ye the walks have beenWhere maids have spent their hours. You have beheld how theyWith wicker arks did come,To kiss and bear awayThe richer cowslips home. You’ve heard them sweetly sing,And seen them in a round;Each virgin, like a spring,With honeysuckles crown’d. But now, […]

You have beheld a smiling roseWhen virgins’ hands have drawnO’er it a cobweb-lawn:And here, you see, this lily shows,Tomb’d in a crystal stone,More fair in this transparent caseThan when it grew alone,And had but single grace. You see how cream but naked is,Nor dances in the eyeWithout a strawberry;Or some fine tincture, like to this,Which […]

To gather flowers, Sappha went,And homeward she did bringWithin her lawny continent,The treasure of the Spring. She smiling blush’d, and blushing smiled,And sweetly blushing thus,She look’d as she’d been got with childBy young Favonius. Her apron gave, as she did pass,An odour more divine,More pleasing too, than ever wasThe lap of Proserpine.

Welcome, maids of honour,You do bringIn the Spring;And wait upon her. She has virgins many,Fresh and fair;Yet you areMore sweet than any. You’re the maiden posies;And so graced,To be placed‘Fore damask roses. –Yet, though thus respected,By and byYe do lie,Poor girls, neglected.

Fair Daffadils, we weep to seeYou haste away so soon;As yet the early-rising sunHas not attain’d his noon.Stay, stay,Until the hasting dayHas runBut to the even-song;And, having pray’d together, weWill go with you along. We have short time to stay, as you;We have as short a spring;As quick a growth to meet decay,As you, or […]

Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed nightHas not as yet begunTo make a seizure on the light,Or to seal up the sun. No marigolds yet closed are,No shadows great appear;Nor doth the early shepherds’ starShine like a spangle here. Stay but till my Julia closeHer life-begetting eye;And let the whole world then disposeItself to live […]

Why do ye weep, sweet babes? can tearsSpeak grief in you,Who were but bornjust as the modest mornTeem’d her refreshing dew?Alas, you have not known that showerThat mars a flower,Nor felt th’ unkindBreath of a blasting wind,Nor are ye worn with years;Or warp’d as we,Who think it strange to see,Such pretty flowers, like to orphans […]

Sweet Amarillis, by a spring’sSoft and soul-melting murmurings,Slept; and thus sleeping, thither flewA Robin-red-breast; who at view,Not seeing her at all to stir,Brought leaves and moss to cover her:But while he, perking, there did pryAbout the arch of either eye,The lid began to let out day,–At which poor Robin flew away;And seeing her not dead, […]

Be not proud, but now inclineYour soft ear to discipline;You have changes in your life,Sometimes peace, and sometimes strife;You have ebbs of face and flows,As your health or comes or goes;You have hopes, and doubts, and fears,Numberless as are your hairs;You have pulses that do beatHigh, and passions less of heat;You are young, but must […]

Am I despised, because you say;And I dare swear, that I am gray?Know, Lady, you have but your day!And time will come when you shall wearSuch frost and snow upon your hair;And when, though long, it comes to pass,You question with your looking-glass,And in that sincere crystal seekBut find no rose-bud in your cheek,Nor any […]

Fly to my mistress, pretty pilfering bee,And say thou bring’st this honey-bag from me;When on her lip thou hast thy sweet dew placed,Mark if her tongue but slyly steal a taste;If so, we live; if not, with mournful hum,Toll forth my death; next, to my burial come.

About the sweet bag of a beeTwo Cupids fell at odds;And whose the pretty prize should beThey vow’d to ask the Gods. Which Venus hearing, thither came,And for their boldness stript them;And taking thence from each his flame,With rods of myrtle whipt them. Which done, to still their wanton cries,When quiet grown she’d seen them,She […]

No fault in women, to refuseThe offer which they most would chuse.–No fault: in women, to confessHow tedious they are in their dress;–No fault in women, to lay onThe tincture of vermilion;And there to give the cheek a dyeOf white, where Nature doth deny.–No fault in women, to make showOf largeness, when they’re nothing so;When, […]

I will confessWith cheerfulness,Love is a thing so likes me,That, let her layOn me all day,I’ll kiss the hand that strikes me. I will not, I,Now blubb’ring cry,It, ah! too late repents meThat I did fallTo love at all–Since love so much contents me. No, no, I’ll beIn fetters free;While others they sit wringingTheir hands […]

When I love, as some have toldLove I shall, when I am old,O ye Graces! make me fitFor the welcoming of it!Clean my rooms, as temples be,To entertain that deity;Give me words wherewith to woo,Suppling and successful too;Winning postures; and withal,Manners each way musical;Sweetness to allay my sourAnd unsmooth behaviour:For I know you have the […]

As is your name, so is your comely faceTouch’d every where with such diffused grace,As that in all that admirable round,There is not one least solecism found;And as that part, so every portion elseKeeps line for line with beauty’s parallels.

These springs were maidens once that loved,But lost to that they most approved:My story tells, by Love they wereTurn’d to these springs which we see here:The pretty whimpering that they make,When of the banks their leave they take,Tells ye but this, they are the same,In nothing changed but in their name.

Reach with your whiter hands to meSome crystal of the spring;And I about the cup shall seeFresh lilies flourishing. Or else, sweet nymphs, do you but this–To th’ glass your lips incline;And I shall see by that one kissThe water turn’d to wine.

1 Among thy fancies, tell me this,What is the thing we call a kiss?2 I shall resolve ye what it is:– It is a creature born and bredBetween the lips, all cherry-red,By love and warm desires fed,–CHOR. And makes more soft the bridal bed. 2 It is an active flame, that fliesFirst to the babies […]

A Gyges ring they bear about them still,To be, and not seen when and where they will;They tread on clouds, and though they sometimes fall,They fall like dew, and make no noise at all:So silently they one to th’ other come,As colours steal into the pear or plum,And air-like, leave no pression to be seenWhere’er […]