Sweet Adon, darest not glance thine eye

N’oserez vous, mon bel ami?

Upon thy Venus that must die? (more…)

Sitting by a river’s side,

Where a silent stream did glide,

Muse I did of many things

That the mind in quiet brings. (more…)

As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,

Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; (more…)

Come to your heaven, you heavenly choirs,

Earth hath the heaven of your desires.

Remove your dwelling to your God; (more…)

Make me, O Lord, thy spinning wheel complete.

Thy holy word my distaff make for me.

Make mine affections thy swift flyers neat,

And make my soul thy holy spool to be. (more…)

Thou sorrow, venom elf: Is this thy play,

To spin a web out of thyself

To catch a fly? (more…)

Can we not force from widowed poetry,

Now thou art dead, great Donne, one elegy

To crown thy hearse?

Why yet did we not trust,

Though with unkneaded dough-baked prose, thy dust,

Such as the unscissored lect’rer from the flower

Of fading rhetoric, short-lived as his hour,

Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay (more…)

Give me more love, or more disdain;

The torrid or the frozen zone

Bring equal ease unto my pain; (more…)

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,

When June is past, the fading rose;

Or in your beauty’s orient deep, (more…)

The glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armor against fate;

Death lays his icy hand on kings. (more…)