Let not woman e’er complain
Of inconstancy in love;
Let not woman e’er complain
Fickle man is apt to rove;
Look abroad through Nature’s range,
Nature’s mighty law is change;
Ladies, would it not be strange
Man should then a monster prove?
Mark the winds, and mark the skies;
Ocean’s ebb and ocean’s flow;
...
An Apology for Going into the Country
CHLOE, we must not always be in heaven,
Forever toying, ogling, kissing, billing;
The joys for which I thousands would have given,
Will presently be scarcely worth a shilling.
Thy neck is fairer than the Alpine snows,
And, sweetly swelling, beats the down of doves;
Thy cheek of health, a rival...
I Will not let you say a woman’s part
Must be to give exclusive love alone;
Dearest, although I love you so, my heart
Answers a thousand claims besides your own.
I love,—what do I not love? Earth and air
Find space within my heart, and myriad things
You would not deign to heed are cherished there,
And vibrate on its very inmost...
Sonnet Cxlviii.
o ME! what eyes hath Love put in my head
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love’s eye is...
Sonnet Xxxiii.
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...
Alexis, here she stayed; among these pines,
Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair;
Here did she spread the treasure of her hair,
More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines.
She sate her by these muskèd eglantines,
The happy place the print seems yet to bear;
Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines,
To which winds, trees,...
Of all the torments, all the cares,
With which our lives are curst;
Of all the plagues a lover bears,
Sure rivals are the worst!
By partners in each other kind,
Afflictions easier grow;
In love alone we hate to find
Companions of our woe.
Sylvia, for all the pangs you see
Are laboring in my breast,
I...
Part First
my dear and only love, I pray,
This noble world of thee
Be governed by no other sway
But purest monarchie.
For if confusion have a part,
Which virtuous souls abhore,
And hold a synod in thy heart,
I ’ll never love thee more.
Like Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone,
My...
I ’d been away from her three years,—about that,
And I returned to find my Mary true;
And though I ’d question her, I did not doubt that
It was unnecessary so to do.
’T was by the chimney-corner we were sitting:
“Mary,” said I, “have you been always true?”
“Frankly,” says she, just pausing in her knitting,
“I don’t think I ’ve...
Margarita first possessed,
If I remember well, my breast,
Margarita first of all;
But when awhile the wanton maid
With my restless heart had played,
Martha took the flying ball.
Martha soon did it resign
To the beauteous Catharine.
Beauteous Catharine gave place
(Though loath and angry she to part
With the...
