Let others sing of Knights and Paladins
In aged accents and untimely words,
Paint shadows in imaginary lines
Which well the reach of their high wits records;
But I must sing of thee and those fair eyes;
Authentic shall my verse in time to come,
When yet th'unborn shall say, "Lo, where she lies
Whose beauty made him speak that else was dumb."
These are the Arks, the Trophies I erect
That fortify thy name against old age,
And these thy sacred virtues must protect
Against the dark and Time's consuming rage.

Unhappy pen and ill-accepted papers,
That intimate in vain my chaste desires,
My chaste desires, the ever-burning tapers
Enkindled by her eyes' celestial fires.
Celestial fires and unrespecting powers,
That deign not view the glory of your might
In humble lines, the work of carefull hours,
The sacrifice I offer to her sight.
But sith she scorns her own, this rests for me;
I'll moan myself and hide the wrong I have,
And so content me that her frowns should be
To my'infant style the cradle and the grave.

As Love and I, late harbor'd in one inn,
With proverbs thus each other entertain:
"In Love there is no lack," thus I begin;
"Fair words make fools," replieth he again;
"Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I;
"As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow";
"Fortune assists the boldest," I reply;
"A hasty man," quoth he, "ne'er wanted woe";
"Labor is light where Love," quoth I, "doth pay";
Saith he, "Light burden's heavy, if far borne";
Quoth I, "The main lost, cast the bye away";

Yet read at last the story of my woe,
The dreary abstracts of my endless cares,
With my life's sorrow interlined so,
Smok'd with my sighs and blotted with my tears,
The sad memorials of my miseries,
Penn'd in the grief of mine afflicted ghost,
My life's complaint in doleful elegies,
With so pure love as Time could never boast.
Receive the incense which I offer here,
By my strong faith ascending to thy fame,
My zeal, my hope, my vows, my praise, my prayer,
My soul's oblation to thy sacred name,

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my languish and restore the light,
With dark forgetting of my cares' return.
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwrack of my ill-adventur'd youth;
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn
Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease Dreams, th'imagery of our day desires,
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
Never let the rising Sun approve you liars,
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.

Drawn by th'attractive virtue of her eyes,
My touch'd heart turns it to that happy coast;
My joyful North, where all my fortune lies,
The level of my hopes desired most.
There where my Delia , fairer than the Sun,
Deckt with her youth whereon the world smileth,
Joys in that honor which her beauty won,
Th'eternal volume which her fame compileth.
Flourish, fair Albion, glory of the North,
Neptune's darling held between his arms,
Divided from the world as better worth,
Kept for himself, defended from all harms.

Another to the River Anker

Clear Anker, on whose silver-sanded shore
My soul-shrin'd saint, my fair Idea, lies,
O blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore
The crystal stream refined by her eyes,
Where sweet myrrh-breathing Zephyr in the Spring
Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers,
Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing
Among the dainty dew-impearled flowers;
Say thus, fair Brook, when thou shalt see thy Queen,
"Lo, here thy shepherd spent his wand'ring years,
And in these shades, dear nymph, he oft hath been,

What? Dost thou mean to cheat me of my heart?
To take all mine and give me none again?
Or have thine eyes such magic or that art
That what they get they ever do retain?
Play not the tyrant, but take some remorse;
Rebate thy spleen, if but for pity's sake;
Or, cruel, if thou canst not, let us 'scourse,
And, for one piece of thine, my whole heart take.
But what of pity do I speak to thee,
Whose breast is proof against complaint or prayer?
Or can I think what my reward shall be
From that proud beauty, which was my betrayer?

At the Author's Going into Italy

O whether (poor forsaken) wilt thou go,
To go from sorrow and thine own distress,
When every place presents the face of woe,
And no remove can make thy sorrow less?
Yet go (forsaken), leave these woods, these plains;
Leave her and all, and all for her that leaves
Thee and thy love forlorn, and both disdains,
And of both wrongful deems and ill conceives.
Seek out some place, and see if any place
Give give the least release unto thy grief,
Convey thee from the thought of thy disgrace,

I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes would read
Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile;
Flowers have a time before they come to seed,
And she is young and now must sport the while.
Ah, sport, sweet Maid, in season of these years,
And learn to gather flowers before they wither;
And where the sweetest blossoms first appears,
Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither.
Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air
And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise;
Pity and smiles do best become the fair;