Thou, whose sad heart, and weeping head lies low, Whose cloudy breast cold damps invade,
Who never feels the Sun, nor smooths thy brow, But sits oppressed in the shade, Awake, awake!
And in His Resurrection partake, Who, on this day (that thou might rise as He) Rose up, and cancelled two deaths due to thee.
Awake! awake! and like the Sun, disperse All mists that would usurp this day;
Where are thy Palms, thy branches, and thy verse? Hosanna! hark! why dost thou stay? Arise, arise,
And with His healing blood anoint thine eyes, Thy inward eyes; His blood will cure thy mind, Whose spittle only could restore the blind.
Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose. Hail bounteous May that dost inspire Mirth and youth, and warm desire, Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing, Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song, And welcom thee, and wish thee long.
~~
John Milton (1608-1674)
from Poetical Works, 1900
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 thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup, I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope, that there It could not wither'd be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent’st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee.
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb, Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment, There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room? Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient, Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie? Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.
First, April, she with mellow showers
Opens the way for early flowers;
Then after her comes smiling May,
In a more rich and sweet array;
Next enters June, and brings us more
Gems than those two that went before:
Then (lastly) July comes, and she
More wealth brings in than all those three.
~~ Robert Herrick (1591-1674) from Hesperides, 1648
I loved a lass, a fair one, As fair as e'er was seen;
She was indeed a rare one, Another Sheba Queen.
But, fool as then I was, I thought she loved me too;
But now, alas! sh' 'as left me, Falero, lero, loo.
Her hair like gold did glister, Each eye was like a star;
She did surpass her sister, Which pass'd all others far.
She would me honey call; She'd, O she'd kiss me too;
But now, alas! sh' 'as left me, Falero, lero, loo.
In summer time to Medley, My love and I would go;
The boatmen there stood ready, My love and I to row.
For cream there would we call, For cakes, and for prunes too;
But now, alas! sh' 'as left me, Falero, lero, loo.
Many a merry meeting My love and I have had;
She was my only sweeting, She made my heart full glad,
The tears stood in her eyes, Like to the morning dew;
But now, alas! sh' 'as left me, Falero, lero, loo.
And as abroad we walked, As lovers' fashion is,
Oft as we sweetly talked The sun should steal a kiss.
The wind upon her lips Likewise most sweetly blew;
But now, alas! sh' 'as left me, Falero, lero, loo.
Her cheeks were like the cherry, Her skin was white as snow;
When she was blithe and merry, She angel-like did show;
Her waist exceeding small, The fives did fit her shoe;
But now, alas! sh' 'as left me, Falero, lero, loo.
In summer time or winter She had her heart's desire;
I still did scorn to stint her From sugar, sack, or fire;
The world went round about, No cares we ever knew;
But now, alas! sh' 'as left me, Falero, lero, loo.
As we walked home together At midnight through the town,
To keep away the weather O'er her I'd cast my gown.
No cold my love should feel, Whate'er the heavens could do;
But now, alas! sh' 'as left me, Falero, lero, loo.
Like doves we would be billing, And clip and kiss so fast;
Yet she would be unwilling That I should kiss the last.
They're Judas-kisses now, Since that they proved untrue;
For now, alas! sh' 'as left me, Falero, lero, loo.
To maidens' vows and swearing Henceforth no credit give;
You may give them the hearing, But never them believe.
They are as false as fair, Unconstant, frail, untrue;
For mine, alas! has left me, Falero, lero, loo.
'Twas I that paid for all things, 'Twas others drank the wine;
I cannot now recall things, Live but a fool to pine.
'Twas I that beat the bush, The bird to others flew;
For she, alas! hath left me, Falero, lero, loo.
If ever that dame Nature, For this false lover's sake,
Another pleasing creature Like unto her would make,
Let her remember this, To make the other true;
For this, alas! hath left me, Falero, lero, loo.
No riches now can raise me, No want make me despair;
No misery amaze me, Nor yet for want I care.
I have lost a world itself, My earthly heaven, adieu,
Since she, alas! hath left me, Falero, lero, loo.
~~ George Wither (1588-1667) from The Poetry of George Wither
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the Judgement that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
~~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616) from Shakespeare's Sonnets (American Book Co., 1905)
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare, read by Patrick Stewart. Courtesy Zsuzsanna Uhlik.
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good.
~~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616) from Macbeth, 1623
Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school boys and sour prentices, Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long; If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and tomorrow late, tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.
She's all states, and all princes, I; Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus. Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
Come merry Spring delight us,
For Winter long did spight us,
In pleasure still persever,
Thy beauties ending never: Spring, and grow Lasting so,
With joyes increasing ever.
Let cold from hence be banish'd,
Till hopes from me be vanish'd,
But bless thy daynties growing
In fulnesse freely flowing: Sweet Birds sing For the Spring,
All mirth is now bestowing.
Philomel in this Arbour
Makes now her loving Harbour,
Yet of her state complaining,
Her Notes in mildnesse strayning, Which though sweet, Yet doe meet,
Her former lucklesse paining.
~~
Mary Wroth (1587-1633)
fromPamphilia to Amphilanthus, 1621
Under an aged Oke was WILLY laid,
WILLY, the lad who whilome made the rockes
To ring with joy, whilst on his pipe he plaid,
And from their maisters wood the neighb'ring flockes
But now o're-come with dolors deepe
That nye his heart-strings rent,
Ne car'd he for his silly sheepe,
Ne car'd for merriment.
But chang'd his wonted walkes
For uncouth paths unknowne,
Where none but trees might heare his plaints,
And eccho rue his mone.
Autumne it was, when droop'd the sweetest floures,
And Rivers (swolne with pride) orelook'd the bankes,
Poore grew the day of Summer's golden houres,
And void of sapp stood Ida's Cedar-rankes,
The pleasant meadows sadly lay
In chill and cooling sweats
By rising fountaines, or as they
Fear'd Winters wastfull threats.
Against the broad-spred Oke,
Each winde in fury beares;
Yet fell their leaves not halfe so fast
As did the Shepherdes teares.
~~ William Browne of Tavistock (?1590-1645?)
fromThe Shepheard's Pipe, and other eglogues, 1614
Let man’s soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl’d by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees God’s face, that is self-life, must die;
What a death were it then to see God die?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our souls, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg’d and torn?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God’s partner here, and furnish’d thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom’d us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They’re present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to Thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I’ll turn my face.
~~ John Donne (1572-1631) From Poems, 1896 [Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all-triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.
~~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616) from Shakespeare's Sonnets (London: John Lane, 1899)
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
"Full many a glorious morning have I seen" read by Simon Russell Beale.
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 blushing Morning open'd not more fair.
How could it be so fair, and you away?
How could the Trees be beauteous, Flowers so gay?
Could they remember but last year,
How you did Them, They you delight,
The sprouting leaves which saw you here,
And call'd their Fellows to the sight,
Would, looking round for the same sight in vain,
Creep back into their silent Barks again.
Where e'er you walk'd trees were as reverend made,
As when of old Gods dwelt in every shade.
Is 't possible they should not know,
What loss of honor they sustain,
That thus they smile and flourish now,
And still their former pride retain ?
Dull Creatures! 'tis not without Cause that she,
Who fled the God of wit, was made a Tree.
In ancient times sure they much wiser were,
When they rejoyc'd the Thracian verse to hear;
In vain did Nature bid them stay,
When Orpheus had his song begun,
They call'd their wondring roots away,
And bad them silent to him run.
How would those learned trees have followed you?
You would have drawn Them, and their Poet too.
But who can blame them now? for, since you're gone,
They're here the only Fair, and Shine alone.
You did their Natural Rights invade;
Where ever you did walk or sit,
The thickest Boughs could make no shade,
Although the Sun had granted it:
The fairest Flowers could please no more, neer you,
Then Painted Flowers, set next to them, could do.
When e'er then you come hither, that shall be
The time, which this to others is, to Me.
The little joys which here are now,
The name of Punishments do bear;
When by their sight they let us know
How we depriv'd of greater are.
'Tis you the best of Seasons with you bring;
This is for Beasts, and that for Men the Spring.
~~ Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) from The Mistress; or, Love poems, 1647
I saw fair Chloris walk alone,
When feather'd rain came softly down,
As Jove descending from his Tower
To court her in a silver shower:
The wanton snow flew to her breast,
Like pretty birds into their nest,
But, overcome with whiteness there,
For grief it thaw'd into a tear:
Thence falling on her garments' hem,
To deck her, froze into a gem.
~~ William Strode (1600-1645) from the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900
(edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch), 1900 [Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
In numbers, and but these few,
I sing thy birth, O Jesu!
Thou pretty baby, born here
With sup'rabundant scorn here;
Who for thy princely port here,
Hadst for thy place
Of birth, a base
Out-stable for thy court here.
Instead of neat enclosures
Of interwoven osiers,
Instead of fragrant posies
Of daffodils and roses,
Thy cradle, kingly stranger,
As gospel tells,
Was nothing else
But here a homely manger.
But we with silks, not crewels,
With sundry precious jewels,
And lily work will dress thee,
And, as we dispossess thee
Of clouts, we'll make a chamber,
Sweet babe, for thee
Of ivory,
And plaster'd round with amber.
~~ Robert Herrick (1591-1674) from Noble Numbers, 1648
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
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