“I was promised on a time To have reason for my rhyme; From that time unto this season, I received nor rhyme nor reason.”

Joy may you have and gentle hearts content Of your loves couplement: And let faire Venus, that is Queene of love, With her heart-quelling Sonne upon you smile

All flesh doth frailty breed!

All that in this delightful garden grows should happy be and have immortal bliss.

So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought; Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

Beauty is not, as fond men misdeem, an outward show of things that only seem.

My Love is like to ice, and I to fire: How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat?

In vain he seeketh others to suppress, Who hath not learn’d himself first to subdue.

Ah! when will this long weary day have end, And lende me leave to come unto my love? – Epithalamion

The man whom nature’s self had made to mock herself, and truth to imitate.

And he that strives to touch the stars Oft stumbles at a straw.

For that which all men then did virtue call, Is now called vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight virtue, and so used of all: Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right.

For evil deeds may better than bad words be borne.

Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.

All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring In goodly colours gloriously arrayed; Go to my love, where she is careless laid.

Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To loose good dayes, that might be better spent; To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.

How many perils doe enfold The righteous man to make him daily fall.