• I pray thee, leave, love me no more,
    Call home the heart you gave me!
    I but in vain that saint adore
    That can but will not save me.
    These poor half-kisses kill me quite—
    Was ever man thus servèd?
    Amidst an ocean of delight
    For pleasure to be starvèd?

    Show me no more those snowy breasts
    With azure riverets branchèd,...

  • Dear, I to thee this diamond commend,
    In which a model of thyself I send.
    How just unto thy joints this circlet sitteth,
    So just thy face and shape my fancy fitteth.
    The touch will try this ring of purest gold,
    My touch tries thee, as pure though softer mold.
    That metal precious is, the stone is true,
    As true, and then how much more precious you....

  • Queen Virtue's court, which some call Stella's face,
    Prepar'd by Nature's choicest furniture,
    Hath his front built of alabaster pure;
    Gold in the covering of that stately place.

    The door by which sometimes comes forth her Grace
    Red porphir is, which lock of pearl makes sure,
    Whose porches rich (which name of cheeks endure)
    Marble mix'd red and white...

  • If all the world and love were young,
    And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
    These pretty pleasures might me move
    To live with thee and be thy love.

    Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
    When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
    And Philomel becometh dumb;
    The rest complains of cares to come.

    The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
    To wayward...

  • Let me not to the marriage of true minds
    Admit impediments. Love is not love
    Which alters when it alteration finds,
    Or bends with the remover to remove:
    O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
    That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
    It is the star to every wandering bark,
    Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
    Love's not Time's fool,...

  • Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
    Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
    And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
    Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
    And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
    And every fair from fair sometime declines,
    By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;
    But...

  • My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
    Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
    If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
    If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
    I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
    But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
    And in some perfumes is there more delight
    Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
    ...

  • Love is a sickness full of woes,
    All remedies refusing;
    A plant that with most cutting grows,
    Most barren with best using.
    Why so?

    More we enjoy it, more it dies;
    If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries--
    Heigh ho!

    Love is a torment of the mind,
    A tempest everlasting;
    And Jove hath made it of a kind
    Not...

  • You meaner beauties of the night,
    That poorly satisfy our eyes
    More by your number than your light,
    You common people of the skies;
    What are you when the moon shall rise?

    You curious chanters of the wood,
    That warble forth Dame Nature's lays,
    Thinking your passions understood
    By your weak accents; what 's your praise...

  • My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
    By just exchange one for another given:
    I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
    There never was a better bargain driven:
    My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

    His heart in me keeps him and me in one,
    My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
    He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
    I...