Because I oft in dark abstracted guise Seem most alone in greatest company,
With dearth of words, or answers quite awry,
To them that would make speech of speech arise,
They deem, and of their doom the rumor flies,
Come Sleep;
O Sleep
the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The curious wits seeing dull pensiveness Bewray itself in my long settled eyes,
Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise,
With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess
Some that know how my spring I did address,
Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow:
And damning their own selves to Tantal's smart,
Wealth breeding want, more blist more wretched grow
Yet to those fools heav'n such wit...
Strephon
You Gote-herd Gods, that loue the grassie mountaines, You Nimphes that haunt the springs in pleasant vallies, You Satyrs ioyde with free and quiet forests, Vouchsafe your silent eares to playning musique, Which to my woes giues still...
The wisest scholar of the wight most wise By Phoebus' doom, with sugar'd sentence says,
That Virtue, if it once met with our eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise;
But for that man with pain his truth descries,
Let dainty wits cry on the sisters nine, That, bravely mask'd, their fancies may be told; Or,
Pindar's apes, flaunt they in phrases fine, Enam'ling with pied flowers their thoughts of gold
Or else let them in statelier glory shine, Ennob...
Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend,
Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire,
Than did on him who first stole down the fire,
While Love on me doth all his quiver spend,
Be your words made, good sir, of Indian ware, That you allow me them by so small rate
Or do you cutted Spartans imitate
Or do you mean my tender ears to spare, That to my questions you so total are
When I demand of Phœnix Stella's s...
O Lord in me there lieth nought But to thy search revealed lies; For when I sit Thou markest it: Nor less thou notest when I rise:
Yea, closest closet of my thought Hath open windows to thine eyes
Thou walkest with me when I walk; When t...
With what sharp checks I in myself am shent,
When into Reason's audit I do go:
And by just counts myself a bankrupt know Of all the goods, which heav'n to me hath lent:
Unable quite to pay even Nature's rent,
Because I breathe not love to every one,
Nor do not use set colours for to wear,
Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair,
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan,