Die, hapless man
Die, hapless man, since she denies thee grace,
Die, and despair, sith she doth scorn to love thee.
Farewell, most fair, tho' thou dost fair deface,
Sith for my duteous love thou dost reprove me.
Those smiling eyes, that sometimes me revived,
Clouded of frowns, have me of life deprived.
poem by John Wilbye
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Ballad IV
Farewell, my lady dear and dread,
Farewell, of all sovereign and queen,
Farewell, perfect and sacred head,
Farewell, who dost all honour mean,
Farewell, true heart, loyal and clean,
Farewell, best flower the world doth bear,
Farewell, yet not farewell, O white and fair !
Farewell, O wise, that no ill said,
Farewell, river that made life green,
Farewell, in whom fame harboured,
Farewell, voice that all ears could win,
Farewell, solace of all my teen,
Farewell, whose grace is wide as air,
Farewell, yet not farewell, O white and fair !
Farewell, soft look that through me sped,
Farewell, more fair than Helen queen,
Farewell, body and sweet soul wed,
Farewell, thou most gracious demesne,
Farewell, pole-star, joyous and keen,
Farewell, fountain of valour rare,
Farewell, yet not farewell, O white and fair !
Farewell, Princess of noblest mien,
Farewell, thou aweing smile serene,
Farewell, without fault, sin's despair,
Farewell, yet not farewell, O white and fair !
poem by Christine de Pizan
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Corydon's Supplication To Phyllis
Sweet Phyllis, if a silly swain
May sue to thee for grace,
See not thy loving shepherd slain
With looking on thy face;
But think what power thou hast got
Upon my flock and me;
Thou seest they now regard me not,
But all do follow thee.
And if I have so far presumed,
With prying in thine eyes,
Yet let not comfort be consumed
That in thy pity lies;
But as thou art that Phyllis fair,
That fortune favour gives,
So let not love die in despair
That in thy favour lives.
The deer do browse upon the briar,
The birds do pick the cherries;
And will not Beauty grant Desire
One handful of her berries?
If it be so that thou hast sworn
That none shall look on thee,
Yet let me know thou dost not scorn
To cast a look on me.
But if thy beauty make thee proud,
Think then what is ordain'd;
The heavens have never yet allow'd
That love should be disdain'd.
Then lest the fates that favour love
Should curse thee for unkind,
Let me report for thy behoof,
The honour of thy mind;
Let Corydon with full consent
Set down what he hath seen,
That Phyllida with Love's content
Is sworn the shepherds' queen.
poem by Nicholas Breton
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Thy Better Self
I AM thy other self, what thou wilt be,
When thou art I, the one seest now;
In finding thy true self thou wilt find me,
The springing blade, where now thou dost but plough.
I am thy neighbor, a new house I've built,
Which thou as yet hast never entered in;
I come to call thee; come in when thou wilt,
The feast is always ready to begin.
Thou should'st love me, as thou dost love thyself,
For I am but another self beside;
To show thee him thou lov'st in better health,
What thou would'st be, when thou to him hast died;
Then visit me, I make thee many a call;
Nor live I near to thee alone, but all.
poem by Jones Very
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Love
1 Canst thou love me, lady?
2 I've not learn'd to woo:
3 Thou art on the shady
4 Side of sixty too.
5 Still I love thee dearly!
6 Thou hast lands and pelf:
7 But I love thee merely
8 Merely for thyself.
9 Wilt thou love me, fairest?
10 Though thou art not fair;
11 And I think thou wearest
12 Someone-else's hair.
13 Thou could'st love, though, dearly:
14 And, as I am told,
15 Thou art very nearly
16 Worth thy weight, in gold.
17 Dost thou love me, sweet love?
18 Tell me that thou dost!
19 Women fairly beat one,
20 But I think thou must.
21 Thou art loved so dearly:
22 I am plain, but then
23 Thou (to speak sincerely)
24 Art as plain again.
25 Love me, bashful fairy!
26 I've an empty purse:
27 And I've 'moods,' which vary;
28 Mostly for the worse.
29 Still, I love thee dearly:
30 Though I make (I feel)
31 Love a little queerly,
32 I'm as true as steel.
33 Love me, swear to love me
34 (As, you know, they do)
35 By yon heaven above me
36 And its changeless blue.
37 Love me, lady, dearly,
38 If you'll be so good;
39 Though I don't see clearly
40 On what ground you should.
41 Love me -- ah or love me
42 Not, but be my bride!
43 Do not simply shove me
44 (So to speak) aside!
45 P'raps it would be dearly
46 Purchased at the price;
47 But a hundred yearly
48 Would be very nice.
poem by Charles Stuart Calverley
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Sonnet 4
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thy self alone,
Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which, used, lives th' executor to be.
poem by William Shakespeare from Sonnets (1609)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which usèd, lives th' executor to be.
poem by William Shakespeare
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Thou Dost Not Know
Thou dost not know it! but to hear
One word of praise from thee,
There is no pain I would not bear,
No task too great for me.
My hands could tireless toil all day,
My feet could tireless run,
If at the close thy lips would say,
'Brave, noble heart, well done.'
* * * * *
Thou dost not know it! but to win
Approval from thine eyes,
My soul has conquered many a sin,
And conquering neared the skies.
And though the reward may not be given,
In all my earthly days,
I feel that after death, in heaven,
Thy lips will give me praise.
* * * * *
Thou dost not know, may never know,
That all I strive to be,
All things praiseworthy that I do,
I strive, and do, for thee.
And though I seldom see thy face,
Or touch thy hand, my friend,
Those meetings are the means of grace,
That help me to the end.
* * * * *
Thou dost not know that thy grand life
Has been my beacon light.
I aim to conquer in the strife,
That I may reach thy height.
I strive to live, so that my feet
May walk the fields most fair,
For the after-life, seems, oh! so sweet,
Because thou wilt be there.
* * * * *
Thou dost not know how brave and strong
A woman's heart can be.
But few could hide so well and long
What mine has hid from thee.
So well, that should this idyl chance
To meet thine eye, my friend,
Thou'd scan it with a careless glance,
Nor dream to whom 'twas penned.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Unwelcome visitor
Begone sad ghost why dost thou bother me.
I knew thee not whilst living thou drew breath.
Nor do I wish to know thee after death.
Why dost thou visit me so frequently?
What is that thou hopest to gain from me?
Unlike the other dead who slumber peacefully.
Under the stone which they must lie beneath.
What wantest thou with me; I know thee not,
nor do I want thy ghostly company.
If once I knew thee I have forgot
Begone sad ghost thou dost not frighten me.
Go now there is no welcome here for thee.
9-Sep-08
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Sonnet 67: Hope, Art Thou True
Hope, art thou true, or dost thou flatter me?
Doth Stella now begin with piteous eye
The ruins of her conquest to espy:
Will she take time, before all wracked be?
Her eye's speech is translated thus by thee.
But failst thou not in phrase so heav'nly high?
Look on again, the fair text better try:
What blushing notes dost thou in margin see?
What sighs stol'n out, or kill'd before full born?
Hast thou found such and such like arguments?
Or art thou else to comfort me foresworn?
Well, how so thou interpret the contents,
I am resolv'd thy error to maintain,
Rather than by more truth to get more pain.
poem by Philip Sidney
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Sonnet 61: Is it thy will thy image should keep open
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
O, no, thy love, though much, is not so great;
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.
poem by William Shakespeare
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May Song
How fair doth Nature
Appear again!
How bright the sunbeams!
How smiles the plain!
The flow'rs are bursting
From ev'ry bough,
And thousand voices
Each bush yields now.
And joy and gladness
Fill ev'ry breast!
Oh earth!--oh sunlight!
Oh rapture blest!
Oh love! oh loved one!
As golden bright,
As clouds of morning
On yonder height!
Thou blessest gladly
The smiling field,--
The world in fragrant
Vapour conceal'd.
Oh maiden, maiden,
How love I thee!
Thine eye, how gleams it!
How lov'st thou me!
The blithe lark loveth
Sweet song and air,
The morning flow'ret
Heav'n's incense fair,
As I now love thee
With fond desire,
For thou dost give me
Youth, joy, and fire,
For new-born dances
And minstrelsy.
Be ever happy,
As thou lov'st me!
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I do not love Thee
I DO not love thee!--no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.
I do not love thee!--yet, I know not why,
Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!
I do not love thee!--yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.
I do not love thee!--yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.
I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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Of the Cuckoo
Thou booby, say'st thou nothing but cuckoo?
The robin and the wren can thee outdo.
They to us play thoróugh their little throats,
Not one, but sundry pretty tuneful notes.
But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do
Little but suck our eggs, and sing cuckoo.
Thy notes do not first welcome in our spring,
Not dost thou its first tokens to us bring.
Birds less than thee by far, like prophets, do
Tell us 'tis coming, though not by cuckoo.
Nor dost thou summer have away with thee,
Though thou a yawling, bawling cuckoo be.
When thou dost cease among us to appear,
Then doth our harvest bravely crown our year.
But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do
Little but suck our eggs, and sing cuckoo.
Since cuckoos forward not our early spring,
Nor help with notes to bring our harvest in:
And since while here she only makes a noise,
So pleasing unto none as girls and boys,
The formalist we may compare her to,
For he doth suck our eggs, and sing cuckoo.
poem by John Bunyan
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I Said to Love.
I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,"
I said to Love.
I said to him,
"We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,"
I said to him.
I said to Love,
"Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts, no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,"
I said to Love.
"Depart then, Love! . . .
- Man's race shall end, dost threaten thou?
The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of? -
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease.--So let it be,"
I said to Love.
poem by Thomas Hardy
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Sonnet XXIII: Time, Cruel Time
Time, cruel Time, come and subdue that brow
Which conquers all but thee, and thee, too, stays
As if she were exempt from scythe or bow,
From love or years unsubject to decays.
Or art thou grown in league with those fair eyes
That they may help thee to consume our days?
Or dost thou spare her for her cruelties,
Being merciless like thee that no man weighs?
And yet thou seest thy power she disobeys,
Cares not for thee, but lets thee waste in vain,
And prodigal of hours and years betrays
Beauty and youth t'opinion and disdain.
Yet spare her, Time, let her exempted be,
She may become more kind to thee or me.
poem by Samuel Daniel
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The Birds
He. Where thou dwellest in what Grove
Tell me Fair one tell me love
Where thou thy charming Nest dost build
O thou pride of every field
She. Yonder stands a lonely tree
There I live and mourn for thee
Morning drinks my silent tear
And evening winds my sorrows bear
He. O thou Summers harmony
I have livd & mournd for thee
Each day I mourn along the wood
And night hath heard my sorrows loud
She. Dost thou truly long for me
And am I thus sweet to thee
Sorrow now is at an End
O my Lover & my Friend
He. Come on wings of joy well fly
To where my Bower hangs on high
Come & make thy calm retreat
Among green leaves and blossoms sweet
poem by William Blake from Songs and Ballads (1794)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Hawk
Thou dost not fly, thou art not perched,
The air is all around:
What is it that can keep thee set,
From falling to the ground?
The concentration of thy mind
Supports thee in the air;
As thou dost watch the small young birgs,
With such a deadly care.
My mind has such a hawk as thou,
It is an evil mood;
It comes when there's no cause for grief,
And on my joys doth brood.
Then do I see my life in parts;
The earth receives my bones,
The common air absorbs my mind---
It knows not flowers from stones.
poem by William Henry Davies
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Thou Flower Of Summer
When in summer thou walkest
In the meads by the river,
And to thyself talkest,
Dost thou think of one ever--
A lost and a lorn one
That adores thee and loves thee?
And when happy morn's gone,
And nature's calm moves thee,
Leaving thee to thy sleep like an angel at rest,
Does the one who adores thee still live in thy breast?
Does nature eer give thee
Love's past happy vision,
And wrap thee and leave thee
In fancies elysian?
Thy beauty I clung to,
As leaves to the tree;
When thou fair and young too
Looked lightly on me,
Till love came upon thee like the sun to the west
And shed its perfuming and bloom on thy breast.
poem by John Clare
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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 fields which thou dost see,
All the plants belong to thee;
All the summer hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice.
Man for thee does sow and plow,
Farmer he, and landlord thou!
Thou dost innocently enjoy;
Nor does thy luxury destroy.
The shepherd gladly heareth thee,
More harmonious than he.
Thee country hinds with gladness hear,
Prophet of the ripened year!
Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire
Phoebus is himself thy sire.
To thee, of all things upon earth,
Life is no longer than thy mirth.
Happy insect! happy thou,
Dost neither age nor winter know;
But when thou'st drunk, and danced, and sung
Thy fill, the flowery leaves among,
(Voluptuous and wise withal,
Epicurean animal!)
Sated with thy summer feast,
Thou retir'st to endless rest.
poem by Abraham Cowley
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A Litany of Lethe
O Lethe, hidden waters never dry,
We, all we weary and heavy-laden, cry,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
--All we have sinnèd, and yet the scars remain.
--And we, all we had sorrow.--And we had pain.
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou that dost flow from Death to Death through Sleep,
Whose waters are the tears of those that weep,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou that dost bring sweet peace to hospitals,
And to the captive openest prison-walls,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou that dost loose the soul from murdered Truth,
And youth from yesterday, and age from youth,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou from lost love remembered sett'st us free
From hopeless love, a lorn eternity;
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou from repentance tak'st the sting, from vice
The memory of a forfeit Paradise;
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou in our grief dost hide from us no less
The anguish of remembered happiness;
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou that dost lay alike on all thy spell,
And free the saint from heaven, the wretch from hell,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Bring, bring soft sleep, and close all eyes for us,
Sleep without dreams, and peace oblivious;
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
We, all we weary and heavy-laden, cry,
Too tired to live, and yet too weak to die,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
poem by Arthur Symons
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