Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune:
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.
Act v. Sc. 5.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that nature might stand up
And say to all the world, _This was a man_!
* * * * *
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
Act i. Sc. 1.
There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
For her own person,
It beggared all description.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.
* * * * *
CYMBELINE.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Some griefs are med'cinable.
Act iii. Sc. 6.
Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth
Finds the down pillow hard.
* * * * *
KING LEAR.
Act i. Sc. 4.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is,
To have a thankless child.
Act i. Sc. 4.
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
O, let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks.
Act iil. Sc. 2.
Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipped of justice.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
I am a man
More sinned against than sinning.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?
* * * * *
Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
Act iii. Sc. 6.
The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.
Act iv. Sc. 6.
Ay, every inch a king.
Act. iv. Sc. 6.
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
to sweeten my imagination.
Act iv. Sc. 6.
Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all.
Act v. Sc. 3.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
Act. v. Sc. 3.
Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman.
* * * * *
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Act i. Sc. 1.
The weakest goes to the wall.
Act i. Sc. 2.
One fire burns out another's burning.
One pain is lessened by another's anguish.
Act i. Sc. 5.
Too early seen unknown, and known too late,
Act ii. Sc. 2.
He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
Act ii. Sc. 2.
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Act ii. Sc. 2.
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye,
Than twenty of their swords.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
At lover's perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
O swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Good-night, good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears
Act ii. Sc. 4.
Stabbed with a white wench's black eye.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
I am the very pink of courtesy.
Act ii. Sc. 4.
My man's as true as steel.
Act ii, Sc. 6.
Here comes the lady;--O, so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.
Act iii. Sc, 1.
A plague o' both the houses!
Act iii. Sc. 1.
_Rom_. Courage, man I the hurt cannot be much.
_Mer_. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door;
but 'tis enough.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy
Act iii. Sc. 5.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
Not stopping o'er the bounds of modesty.
Act v. Sc. I.
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.
Act v. Sc. 1.
A beggarly account of empty boxes.
Act v. Sc. 1.
My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Act v. Sc. 3.
Beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Act v. Sc. 3.
Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace!
* * * * *
HAMLET.
Act i. Sc. 1.
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Act i. Sc. 1.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.
Act i. Sc. 1.
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.
Act i. Sc. 1.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
Act i. Sc. 2.
The head is not more native to the heart.
Act i. Sc. 2.
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
Act i, Sc. 2.
Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems
Act i. Sc. 2.
But I have that within which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
Act i. Sc. 2.
O that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
* * * * *
That it should come to this!
Hyperion to a satyr! so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
* * * * *
Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on.
* * * * *
Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month.
* * * * *
Like Niobe, all tears.
* * * * *
My father's brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Act i. Sc. 2.
In my mind's eye, Horatio.
Act i. Sc. 2.
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Act i. Sc. 2.
A countenance more
In sorrow than in anger.
Act i. Sc. 3.
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel.
* * * * *
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
* * * * *
Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Springes to catch woodcocks.
Act i. Sc. 4.
But to my mind--though I am native here,
And to the manner born--it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance.
Act i. Sc. 4.
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Act i. Sc. 4.
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee.
Act i. Sc. 4.
Let me not burst in ignorance!
Act i. Sc. 4.
I do not set my life at a pin's fee.
Act i. Sc. 4.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Act i. Sc. 5.
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful Porcupine.
Act i. Sc. 5.
O my prophetic soul! my uncle!
Act i. Sc. 5.
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
Act i. Sc. 5.
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
Act i. Sc. 5.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Act i. Sc. 5.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave,
To tell us this.
Act i. Sc. 5.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Act i. Sc. 5.
The time is out of joint.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
This is the very ecstasy of love.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true, 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis, 'tis true.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Doubt thou the stars are tire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
Act ii. Sc. 2,
Still harping on my daughter.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Though this be madness, yet there's method in it.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in
faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action,
how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a God!
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Man delights not me--nor woman neither.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
I know a hawk from a hand-saw.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Come, give us a taste of your quality.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
'Twas caviare to the general.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?
Act ii. Sc. 2.
The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
To be, or not to be? that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?--To die--to sleep--
No more--and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to--'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die--to sleep--
To sleep! perchance, to dream--ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
* * * * *
The spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes;
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin. Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death--
The undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveler returns--puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
* * * * *
Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
thon shalt not escape calumny.
Act iii. Sc. 1.
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers!
Act iii. Sc. X.
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
It out-herods Herod.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made
them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of hearts,
As I do thee.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Something too much of this.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Here's metal more attractive.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Let the galled jade wince, our withers are un-wrung.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep;
Thus runs the world away.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
It will discourse most eloquent music.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
Very like a whale.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
They fool me to the top of my bent.
Act iii. Sc. 2.
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow!
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command.
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
A king Of shreds and patches.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
Act iii. Sc. 4.
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard.
Act iv. Sc. 5.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions!
Act iv. Sc. 5.
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would.
Act v. Sc. 1.
How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation
will undo us.
Act v. Sc. 1.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest; of
most excellent fancy.
Act v. Sc. 1.
Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of
merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Act v. Sc. 1.
To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
Act v. Sc. 1.
Imperial Caesar, dead, and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the
wind away.
Act v. Sc. 1.
Sir, though I am not splenetive and rash, Yet have I in me something
dangerous.
Act v. Sc. 1.
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
Act v. Sc. 2.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.
Act v. Sc. 2.
There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
Act v. Sc. 2.
A hit, a very palpable hit.
* * * * *
OTHELLO.
Act i. Sc. 1.
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors.
Act i. Sc. 3.
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more.
Act i. Sc. 3.
I will a round, unvarnished tale deliver
Of my whole course of love.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents, by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach.
Act i. Sc. 3.
My story being done
She gave me for my pains a world of signs:
She swore, In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing; strange;
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wished she had not heard it; yet she
wished
That Heaven had made her such a man.
Act i. Sc. 3.
Upon this hint I spake.
Act i. Sc. 3.
I do perceive hero a divided duty.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
For I am nothing, if not critical.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
_Iago._ To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.
_Des_. O most lame and impotent conclusion!
Act ii. Sc. 3.
Silence that dreadful bell; it frights the isle
From her propriety.
Act ii. Sc. 3.
O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast
no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!
Act ii. Sc. 3.
O that men should put an enemy in their
mouths, to steal away their brains!
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Good name, in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs roe of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth make
The meat it feeds on.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Trifles, light as air,
Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy sirups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou ow'dst yesterday.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen,
Let him not know it, and he's not robbed at all.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
O, now, forever,
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
* * * * *
Othello's occupation's gone!
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Give me the ocular proof.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
But this denoted a foregone conclusion.
Act iv. Sc. 1.
They laugh that win.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
Steeped me in poverty to the very lips.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
But, alas! to make me
A fixed figure, for the time of scorn
To point his slow, unmovin finger at.
Act iv. Sc. 2.
And put in every honest hand a whip,
To lash the rascal naked through the world.
Act iv. Sc. 3.
'Tis neither here nor there.
Act v. Sc. 1.
He hath a daily beauty in his life.
Act v. Sc. 2.
I have done the state some service, and they know it.
Act v. Sc. 2.
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.
Then must you speak.
* * * * *
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well.
* * * * *
Of one, whose hand,
Like the base Júdean, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe.
* * * * *
Albeit unused to the melting mood.
* * * * *
THOMAS TUSSER.
1523-1580.
_Moral Reflections on the Wind_.
Except wind stands as never it stood,
It is an ill wind turns none to good.
FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE.
1554-1624.
_Mustapha_. Act v. Sc. 4.
O wearisome condition of humanity!
* * * * *
Sonnet LVI.
And out of minde as soon as out of sight.
* * * * *
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.
1565-1593.
_Hero and Leander_.
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight.
_The Passionate Shepherd to his Love_.
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, and hills, and folds,
Woods, or steepy mountains, yield.
* * * * *
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
1552-1618.
_The Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd_.
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
_The Silent Lover_.
Silence in love betrays more love
Than words, though ne'er so witty;
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.
* * * * *
JOSHUA SYLVESTER
1563-1618.
_The Soul's Errand_[3]
Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand!
Fear not to touch the best:
The truth shall be thy warrant.
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
[Note 3: Sylvester is now generally regarded as the author of
"The Soul's Errand," long attributed to Raleigh.]
* * * * *
RICHARD BARNFIELD.
_Address to the Nightingale_.[4]
As it fell upon a day,
In the merry mouth of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made.
[Note 4: This song, often attributed to Shakespeare, is now confidently
assigned to Barnfield, and it is found in his collection
of Poems, published between 1594 and 1598.]
EDMUND SPENSER.
1553-1597.
_Faerie Queene_.
Book i. Canto i. St. 35.
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
Book 1. Canto iii. St. 4.
Her angels face,
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.
Book i. Canto ix. St. 35.
That darkesome cave they enter, where they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullein mind.
Book ii. Canto vi. St. 12.
No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd
No arborett with painted blossomes drest
And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.
Book iv. Canto ii. St.
Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled.
_Lines on his Promised Pension_.
I was promised on a time
To have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season,
I received nor rhyme nor reason.
* * * * *
_Hymn in Honor of Beauty_. Line 132.
For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form, and doth the Body make.
* * * * *
MOTHER HUBBERD'S TALE.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide;
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
* * * * *
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
SIR HENRY WOTTON.
1568-1639.
_The Character of a Happy Life_.
How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
* * * * *
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
* * * * *
_To his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia_.
You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light!
* * * * *
DR. JOHN DONNE.
1573-1631.
FUNERAL ELEGIES, ON THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL.
_The Second Anniversary_. Line 245.
We understood
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say her body thought.
* * * * *
_Elegy_ 8. _The Comparison_.
She and comparisons are odious.
BEN JONSON.
1571-1637.
_To Celia_.
(From "The Forest.")
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
* * * * *
_The Sweet Neglect_. (From the "Silent Woman." Act i. Sc. 5.)
Still to be neat, still to be drest
As you were going to a feast.
* * * * *
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace.
* * * * *
_Good Life_, _Long Life_.
In small proportion we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on Elizabeth_.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.
_Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke_.
Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
* * * * *
_To the Memory of Shakespeare_.
Soul of the age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare rise.
Small Latin, and less Greek.
He was not of an age, but for all time.
* * * * *
Sweet swan of Avon!
* * * * *
_Every Man in his Humor_. Act. ii. Sc. 3.
Get money; still get money, boy;
No matter by what means.
FRANCIS BEAUMONT.
1585-1616.
_Letter to Ben Jonson_.
What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.
* * * * *
GEORGE WITHER.
1588-1667.
_The Shepherd's Resolution_.
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Dye because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care,
'Cause another's rosie are?
If she be not so to me,
What care I how faire she be?
* * * * *
FRANCIS QUARLES.
1592-1644.
_Emblems_. Book ii. 2.
Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.
Book ii. Epigram 10.
This house is to be let for life or years;
Her rent is sorrow, and her income tears,
Cupid 't has long stood void; her bills make known,
She must be dearly let, or let alone.
* * * * *
GEORGE HERBERT.
1593-1632.
_Virtue_.
Sweet day, so cool, so cairn, so bright,
The bridall of the earth and skies.
* * * * *
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives.
* * * * *
SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
1608-1644.
_On a Wedding_.
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.
* * * * *
Her lips were red, and one was thin,
Compared with that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly.
_Song_.
Why so pale and wan, fond lover,
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?
* * * * *
ROBERT HERRICK.
1591-1660.
_The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls_.
Some asked me where the Rubies grew,
And nothing I did say;
But with my finger pointed to
The lips of Julia.
Some asked how Pearls did grow, and where?
Then spoke I to my Girl,
To part her lips, and showed them there
The quarelets of Pearl.
* * * * *
_On her Feet_.
Her pretty feet, like snails, did creep
A little out, and then,
As if they played at Bo-peep,
Did soon draw in again.
_To the Virgins to make much of Time_.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower, that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
* * * * *
_Night Piece to Julia_.
Her eyes the glowworm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
* * * * *
SIR RICHARD LOVELACE.
1618-1658.
_Orpheus to Beasts_.
Oh! could you view the melody
Of every grace,
And music of her face,
You'd drop a tear;
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye,
Than now you hear.
* * * * *
_To Lucasta on Going to the Wars_.
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.
_To Althea from Prison_.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron barres a cage;
Mindes innocent, and quiet, take
That for an hermitage.
* * * * *
JAMES SHIRLEY.
1596-1666.
_Contention of Ajax and Ulysses_.
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
* * * * *
RICHARD CRASHAW.
--1650.
The conscious water saw its God and blushed.[5]
[Note 5: Lympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit.--_Latin Poems_]
* * * * *
_In Praise of Lessius' Rule of Health_.
A happy soul, that all the way
To heaven hath a summer's day.
* * * * *
THOMAS DEKKER.
--1638.
_Old Fortunatus_.
And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.
* * * * *