I bring ye love. QUES. What will love do?ANS. Like, and dislike ye.I bring ye love. QUES. What will love do?ANS. Stroke ye, to strike ye.I bring ye love. QUES. What will love do?ANS. Love will be-fool ye.I bring ye love. QUES. What will love do?ANS. Heat ye, to cool ye.I bring ye love. QUES. […]

Ponder my words, if so that any beKnown guilty here of incivility;Let what is graceless, discomposed, and rude,With sweetness, smoothness, softness be endued:Teach it to blush, to curtsey, lisp, and showDemure, but yet full of temptation, too.Numbers ne’er tickle, or but lightly please,Unless they have some wanton carriages:–This if ye do, each piece will here […]

What needs complaints,When she a placeHas with the raceOf saints?In endless mirth,She thinks not onWhat’s said or doneIn earth:She sees no tears,Or any toneOf thy deep groanShe hears;Nor does she mind,Or think on’t now,That ever thouWast kind:–But changed above,She likes not there,As she did here,Thy love.–Forbear, therefore,And lull asleepThy woes, and weepNo more.

Music, thou queen of heaven, care-charming spell,That strik’st a stillness into hell;Thou that tam’st tigers, and fierce storms, that rise,With thy soul-melting lullabies;Fall down, down, down, from those thy chiming spheresTo charm our souls, as thou enchant’st our ears.

Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere,On this sick youth work your enchantments here!Bind up his senses with your numbers, soAs to entrance his pain, or cure his woe.Fall gently, gently, and a-while him keepLost in the civil wilderness of sleep:That done, then let him, dispossess’d of pain,Like to a slumbering bride, […]

Play, Phoebus, on thy lute,And we will sit all mute;By listening to thy lyre,That sets all ears on fire. Hark, hark! the God does play!And as he leads the wayThrough heaven, the very spheres,As men, turn all to ears!

Whither dost thou hurry me,Bacchus, being full of thee?This way, that way, that way, this,–Here and there a fresh Love is;That doth like me, this doth please;–Thus a thousand mistressesI have now: yet I alone,Having all, enjoy not one!

Bacchus, let me drink no more!Wild are seas that want a shore!When our drinking has no stint,There is no one pleasure in’t.I have drank up for to pleaseThee, that great cup, Hercules.Urge no more; and there shall beDaffadils giv’n up to thee.

Sea-born goddess, let me beBy thy son thus graced, and thee,That whene’er I woo, I findVirgins coy, but not unkind.Let me, when I kiss a maid,Taste her lips, so overlaidWith love’s sirop, that I mayIn your temple, when I pray,Kiss the altar, and confessThere’s in love no bitterness.

Charm me asleep, and melt me soWith thy delicious numbers;That being ravish’d, hence I goAway in easy slumbers.Ease my sick head,And make my bed,Thou Power that canst severFrom me this ill;–And quickly still,Though thou not killMy fever. Thou sweetly canst convert the sameFrom a consuming fire,Into a gentle-licking flame,And make it thus expire.Then make me […]

Rare is the voice itself: but when we singTo th’ lute or viol, then ’tis ravishing.

Begin to charm, and as thou strok’st mine earsWith thine enchantment, melt me into tears.Then let thy active hand scud o’er thy lyre,And make my spirits frantic with the fire;That done, sink down into a silvery strain,And make me smooth as balm and oil again.

The mellow touch of music most doth woundThe soul, when it doth rather sigh, than sound.

In all thy need, be thou possestStill with a well prepared breast;Nor let the shackles make thee sad;Thou canst but have what others had.And this for comfort thou must know,Times that are ill won’t still be so:Clouds will not ever pour down rain;A sullen day will clear again.First, peals of thunder we must hear;When lutes […]

When with the virgin morning thou dost rise,Crossing thyself come thus to sacrifice;First wash thy heart in innocence; then bringPure hands, pure habits, pure, pure every thing.Next to the altar humbly kneel, and thenceGive up thy soul in clouds of frankincense.Thy golden censers fill’d with odours sweetShall make thy actions with their ends to meet.

Lord, thou hast given me a cell,Wherein to dwell;A little house, whose humble roofIs weather proof;Under the spars of which I lieBoth soft and dry;Where thou, my chamber for to ward,Hast set a guardOf harmless thoughts, to watch and keepMe, while I sleep.Low is my porch, as is my fate;Both void of state;And yet the […]

Life is the body’s light; which, once declining,Those crimson clouds i’ th’ cheeks and lips leave shining:-Those counter-changed tabbies in the air,The sun once set, all of one colour are:So, when death comes, fresh tinctures lose their place,And dismal darkness then doth smutch the face.

That flow of gallants which approachTo kiss thy hand from out the coach;That fleet of lackeys which do runBefore thy swift postilion;Those strong-hoof’d mules, which we beholdRein’d in with purple, pearl, and gold,And shed with silver, prove to beThe drawers of the axle-tree;Thy wife, thy children, and the stateOf Persian looms and antique plate:–All these, […]

Time was uponThe wing, to fly away;And I call’d onHim but awhile to stay;But he’d be gone,For aught that I could say. He held out thenA writing, as he went,And ask’d me, whenFalse man would be contentTo pay againWhat God and Nature lent. An hour-glass,In which were sands but few,As he did pass,He shew’d,–and told […]

Along the dark and silent night,With my lantern and my lightAnd the tinkling of my bell,Thus I walk, and this I tell:–Death and dreadfulness call onTo the general session;To whose dismal bar, we thereAll accounts must come to clear:Scores of sins we’ve made here many;Wiped out few, God knows, if any.Rise, ye debtors, then, and […]