If a cleere fountaine still keeping a sad course

If a cleere fountaine still keeping a sad course,
Weepe out her sorrowes in drops, which like teares fall;
Marvell not if I lament my misfortune,
Brought to the same call.

Who thought such faire eyes could shine, and dissemble?
Who thought such sweete breath could poyson loves shame?
Who thought those chast eares could so be defiled?
Hers be the sole blame.

While love deserv'd love, of mine still she fail'd not,
Foole I to love still where mine was neglected,
Yet faith, and honor, both of me claim'd it,

I Shall Not Sing Again of Love

I shall not sing again of love—
I weary of the old unrest.
(But like a hangman, Love has set
His crimson emblem on my breast;

But like a hangman, Love has placed
His crimson seal my heart above)—
Yea, I am wearied with old pain:
I shall not sing again of love.

From victory in love I now am come

From victory in love I now am come
Like a commander kild at the last blow:
Instead of Lawrell, to obtaine a tombe
With triumph that a steely faith I show.
Here must my grave be, which I thus will frame
Made of my stony heart to other name,
Then what I honor, scorne brings me my tombe,
Disdaine the Priest to bury me, I come.

Cloath'd in the reliques of a spotlesse love,
Embrace me you that let true lovers in;
Pure fires of truth doe light me when I moove,
Which lamp-like last, as if they did begin.

From San Juan de la Cruz: O Flame of Living Love

O flame of living love,
That dost eternally
Pierce through my soul with so consuming heat,
Since there's no help above,
Make thou an end of me,
And break the bond of this encounter sweet.

O burn that burns to heal!
O more than pleasant wound!
And O soft hand, O touch most delicate,
That dost new life reveal,
That dost in grace abound,
And, slaying, dost from death to life translate!

O lamps of fire that shined
With so intense a light,
That those deep caverns where the senses live,

The First was Fancy, like a lovely boy

The first was Fancy , like a lovely boy,
Of rare aspect, and beautie without peare;
Matchable either to that ympe of Troy ,
Whom Joue did love, and chose his cup to beare,
Or that same daintie lad, which waas so deare
To Great Alcides , that when as he dyde,
He wailed womanlike with many a teare,
And every wood, and every valley wyde
He fild with Hylas name, the Nymphes eke Hylas cryde.

The Exercise of Affection

There is no worldly pleasure here below
Which by experience doth not folly prove,
But among all the follies that I know,
The sweetest folly in the world is Love.

But not that passion, which by fools' consent,
Above the reason bears imperious sway,
Making their lifetime a perpetual Lent,
As if a man were born to fast and pray.

No! that is not the humour I approve,
As either yielding pleasure or promotion;
I like a mild and lukewarm zeal in love,
Altho' I do not like it in devotion.


Ere yet the dawn

Ere yet the dawn
Pushed rosy fingers up the arch of day
And smiled its promise to the voiceless prime,
Love sat and patterns wove at life's great loom.

He flung the suns into the soundless arch,
Appointed them their courses in the deep,
To keep His great time-harmonies, and blaze
As beacons in the ebon fields of night.
Love balanced them and held them firm and true,
Poised 'twixt attractive and repulsive drift
Amid the throngs of heaven. What though this power
Was ever known to us as gravity,

Come lusty gamesters of the sea

Come lusty gamesters of the sea
Billowes, waves, and winds,
Like to most lovers make your plea
Say love all combinds;
Lett nott Dian rule your sprites,
Her pale face shuns all delights,

Venus was borne, of the sea foame
Queene of love is she
Like her sweet pleasant phantisies roame,
This Varietie;
Juno yett a firme wife is,
Soe may I bee in my blis,

Pallas is yett a fierce, sterne lass,
Wisdome doth profess,
Ceares a hous-wife I soone pass,
Lovers I express;
Venus, my deere sea borne Queene,

By vew of her he ginneth to revive

?By vew of her he ginneth to revive
His ancient love, and dearest Cyparisse ,
And calles to mind his pourtraiture alive,
How faire he was, and yet not faire to this,
And how he slew with glauncing dart amisse
A gentle Hynd, the which the lovely boy
Did love as life, above all worldly blisse;
For griefe whereof the lad n'ould after joy.
But pynd away in anguish and selfe-wild annoy.

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