The Welcome
Go, let the fatted calf be kill’d; My prodigal’s come home at last, With noble resolutions fill’d, And fill’d with sorrow for the past: No more will burn with love or wine; But quite has left his women and his swine. Welcome, ah! welcome, my poor heart! Welcome! I little thought, I’ll swear (‘T […]
The Vote Excerpt
……… This only grant me : that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high. Some honour I would have, Not from great deeds, but good alone ; Th’ ignote are better than ill-known, Rumor can ope the grave. Acquaintance I would hug, but when ‘t depends Not from the […]
The Usurpation
Thou ‘adst to my soul no title or pretence; I was mine own, and free, Till I had given myself to thee; But thou hast kept me slave and prisoner since. Well, since so insolent thou ‘rt grown, Fond tyrant! I’ll depose thee from thy throne; Such outrages must not admitted be In an […]
The Tree Of Knowledge
THAT THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE. Against the Dogmatists. THE sacred tree ‘midst the fair orchard grew; The Phoenix truth did on it rest, And built his perfum’d nest; That right Porphyrian tree which did true Logick shew, Each leaf did learned notions give, And th’ apples were demonstrative; So clear their colour and divine, […]
The Thraldom
I came, I saw, and was undone; Lightning did through my bones and marrow run; A pointed pain pierc’d deep my heart; A swift cold trembling seiz’d on every part; My head turn’d round, nor could it bear The poison that was enter’d there. So a destroying angel’s breath Blows-in the plague, and with […]
The Thief
Thou robb’st my days of business and delights, Of sleep thou robb’st my nights ; Ah, lovely thief, what wilt thou do? What? rob me of heaven too? Even in my prayers thou hauntest me: And I, with wild idolatry, Begin to God, and end them all to thee. Is it a sin to […]
The Spring
THOUGH you be absent here, I needs must say The Trees as beauteous are, and flowers as gay, As ever they were wont to be ; Nay the Birds rural musick too Is as melodious and free, As if they sung to pleasure you: I saw a Rose-Bud ope this morn ; I’ll swear […]
The Request
I’AVE often wish’d to love; what shall I do? Me still the cruel boy does spare; And I a double task must bear, First to woo him, and then a mistress too. Come at last and strike, for shame, If thou art any thing besides a name; I’ll think thee else no God to […]
The Praise Of Pindar In Imitation Of Horace His Second Ode Book 4
Pindarum quisquis studet oemulari, &c. I. Pindar is imitable by none; The phoenix Pindar is a vast species alone. Whoe’er but Daedalus with waxen wings could fly And neither sink too low nor soar too high? What could he who followed claim But of vain boldness the unhappy fame, And by his fall a sea […]
The Parting
As Men in Greenland left beheld the sun From their horizon run; And thought upon the sad half-year Of cold and darkness they must suffer there: So on my parting mistress did I look; With such swoln eyes my farewell took; Ah, my fair star! said I; Ah, those blest lands to which bright […]
The Motto
Tentanda via est, etc. What shall I do to be forever known, And make the age to come my own? I shall like beasts or common people die, Unless you write my elegy; Whilst others great by being born are grown, Their mothers’ labor, not their own. In this scale gold, in th’other fame […]
The Innocent Ill
Though all thy gestures and discourses be Coin’d and stamp’d by modesty; Though from thy tongue ne’er slipp’d away One word which nuns at th’ altar might not say; Yet such a sweetness, such a grace, In all thy speech appear, That what to th’ eye a beauteous face, That thy tongue is to […]
The Heart Breaking
It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke; In vain it something would have spoke: The love within too strong for ‘t was, Like poison put into a Venice-glass. I thought that this some remedy might prove; But oh, the mighty serpent Love, Cut by this chance in pieces small, In all still […]
The Grasshopper
Happy insect, what can be In happiness compared to thee? Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning’s gentle wine! Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill; ‘Tis filled wherever thou dost tread, Nature’s self’s thy Ganymede. Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing, Happier than the happiest king! All the […]
The Given Love
I’LL on; for what should hinder me From loving and enjoying thee? Thou canst not those exceptions make, Which vulgar, sordid mortals take- That my fate’s too mean and low; ‘T were pity I should love thee so, If that dull cause could hinder me In loving and enjoying thee. It does not me […]
The Given Heart
I wonder what those lovers mean, who say They have giv’n their hearts away. Some good kind lover tell me how; For mine is but a torment to me now. If so it be one place both hearts contain, For what do they complain? What courtesy can Love do more, Than to join hearts […]
The Epicure
FILL the bowl with rosy wine, Around our temples roses twine. And let us cheerfully awhile, Like the wine and roses smile. Crown’d with roses we contemn Gyge’s wealthy diadem. Today is ours; what do we fear? Today is ours; we have it here. Let’s treat it kindly, that it may Wish, at least, […]
The Despair
Beneath this gloomy shade, By Nature only for my sorrows made, I’ll spend this voyce in crys, In tears I’ll waste these eyes By Love so vainly fed; So Lust of old the Deluge punished. Ah wretched youth! said I, “Ah, wretched youth!” twice did I sadly cry: “Ah, wretched youth!” the fields and […]
The Chronicle
A BALLAD. MARGARITA first possest, If I remember well, my brest, Margarita first of all; But when awhile the wanton maid With my restless heart had play’d, Martha took the flying ball. Martha soon did it resign To the beauteous Catharine. Beauteous Catharine gave place (Though loth and angry she to part With the […]
The Change
LOVE in her sunny eyes does basking play; Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair; Love does on both her lips for ever stray And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there. In all her outward parts Love’s always seen; But, oh, He never went within. Within Love’s foes, his greatest foes abide, […]
Sport
The merry waves dance up and down, and play, Sport is granted to the sea; Birds are the choristers of the empty air, Sport is never wanting there. The ground doth smile at the spring’s flowery birth, Sport is granted to the earth; The fire its cheering flame on high doth rear, Sport is […]
Resolved To Be Loved
‘Tis true, I’have lov’d already three or four, And shall three or four hundred more; I’ll love each fair one that I see, Till I find one at last that shall love me. That shall my Canaan be, the fatal soil, That ends my wandrings, and my toil. I’ll settle there and happy grow; […]
Resolved Be Loved
‘Tis true, I’have lov’d already three or four, And shall three or four hundred more; I’ll love each fair one that I see, Till I find one at last that shall love me. That shall my Canaan be, the fatal soil, That ends my wandrings, and my toil. I’ll settle there and happy grow; […]
Reason Use It Divine Matters
Some blind themselves, ’cause possibly they may Be led by others a right way; They build on sands, which if unmov’d they find, ‘T is but because there was no wind. Less hard ‘t is, not to err ourselves, than know If our forefathers err’d or no. When we trust men concerning God, we […]
Reason The Use Of It In Divine Matters
Some blind themselves, ’cause possibly they may Be led by others a right way; They build on sands, which if unmov’d they find, ‘T is but because there was no wind. Less hard ‘t is, not to err ourselves, than know If our forefathers err’d or no. When we trust men concerning God, we […]
Platonick Love
INDEED I must confess, When souls mix ‘t is an happiness; But not complete till bodies too do combine, And closely as our minds together join: But half of heaven the souls in glory taste, Till by love in heaven, at last, Their bodies too are plac’d. In thy immortal part Man, as well […]
On The Death Of Sir Henry Wootton
What shall we say, since silent now is he Who when he spoke, all things would silent be? Who had so many languages in store, That only fame shall speak of him in more; Whom England now no more return’d must see; He’s gone to heaven on his fourth embassy. On earth he travell’d […]
On The Death Of Mr William Hervey
IT was a dismal and a fearful night: Scarce could the Morn drive on th’ unwilling Light, When Sleep, Death’s image, left my troubled breast By something liker Death possest. My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow, And on my soul hung the dull weight Of some intolerable fate. What bell was that? Ah […]
On The Death Of Mr Crashaw
Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given The two most sacred names of earth and heaven, The hard and rarest union which can be Next that of godhead with humanity. Long did the Muses banish’d slaves abide, And built vain pyramids to mortal pride; Like Moses thou (though spells and charms withstand) Hast […]
Of Wit
TELL me, O tell, what kind of thing is Wit, Thou who Master art of it. For the First matter loves Variety less ; Less Women love ‘t, either in Love or Dress. A thousand different shapes it bears, Comely in thousand shapes appears. Yonder we saw it plain ; and here ’tis now, […]
Not Fair
‘T IS very true, I thought you once as fair As women in th’ idea are;* Whatever here seems beauteous, seem’d to be But a faint metaphor of thee: But then, methoughts, there something shin’d within, Which casts this lustre o’er thy skin; Nor could I choose but count it the sun’s light, Which […]
Life
Life’s a name That nothing here can truly claim; This wretched inn, where we scarce stay to bait, We call our dwelling-place! And mighty voyages we take, And mighty journeys seem to make, O’er sea and land, the little point that has no space. Because we fight and battles gain, Some captives call, and […]
Hymn To Light
First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come From the old Negro’s darksome womb! Which, when it saw the lovely child, The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled, Thou tide of glory which no rest dost know, But ever ebb and ever flow! Thou golden shower of a true Jove, Who does […]
Hymn Light
First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come From the old Negro’s darksome womb! Which, when it saw the lovely child, The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled, Thou tide of glory which no rest dost know, But ever ebb and ever flow! Thou golden shower of a true Jove, Who does […]
Epitaph
Underneath this marble stone, Lie two beauties joyn’d in one. Two whose loves, death could not sever, For both liv’d, both dy’d together. Two whose soules, being too divine For earth, in their own spheare now shine, Who have left their loves to Fame, And their earth to earth againe. Poetry Monster […]
Despair
Beneath this gloomy shade, By Nature only for my sorrows made, I’ll spend this voyce in crys, In tears I’ll waste these eyes By Love so vainly fed; So Lust of old the Deluge punished. Ah wretched youth! said I, “Ah, wretched youth!” twice did I sadly cry: “Ah, wretched youth!” the fields and […]
Death Sir Henry Wootton
What shall we say, since silent now is he Who when he spoke, all things would silent be? Who had so many languages in store, That only fame shall speak of him in more; Whom England now no more return’d must see; He’s gone to heaven on his fourth embassy. On earth he travell’d […]
Davideis Sacred Poem Troubles David Excerpt
BOOK I (excerpt) I sing the man who Judah’s sceptre bore In that right hand which held the crook before; Who from best poet, best of kings did grow; The two chief gifts Heav’n could on man bestow. Much danger first, much toil did he sustain, Whilst Saul and Hell cross’d his strong fate […]
Davideis A Sacred Poem Of The Troubles Of David Excerpt
BOOK I (excerpt) I sing the man who Judah’s sceptre bore In that right hand which held the crook before; Who from best poet, best of kings did grow; The two chief gifts Heav’n could on man bestow. Much danger first, much toil did he sustain, Whilst Saul and Hell cross’d his strong fate […]
Cousel
AH! what advice can I receive! No, satisfy me first; For who would physick-potions give To one that dies with thirst? A little puff of breath, we find, Small fires can quench and kill; But, when they’re great, the adverse wind Does make them greater still. Now whilst you speak, it moves me much, […]