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Take, O take those lips away
That so sweetly were forsworn,
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn :
But my kisses bring again,
Bring again -
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain,
Seal'd in vain !
Under The Greenwood Tree
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat -
Come hither, come hither, come hither !
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets -
Come hither, come hither, come hither !
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Dirge Of Love
Come away, come away, Death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid ;
Fly away, fly away, breath ;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it !
My part of death no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet
On my black coffin let there be strown ;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown ;
Lay me, O where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there.
A Sea Dirge
Full fathom five thy father lies :
Of his bones are coral made ;
Those are pearls that were his eyes :
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell :
Hark ! now I hear them,-
Ding, dong, Bell.
A Madrigal
Crabbed Age and Youth
Cannot live together :
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care ;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather,
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare :
Youth is full of sport,
Age's breath is short,
Youth is nimble, Age is lame :
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold,
Youth is wild, and Age is tane :-
Age, I do abhor thee,
Youth, I do adore thee ;
Oh ! my Love, my Love is young !
Age, I do defy thee -
O sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long.
O Mistress Mine
O mistress mine, where are you roaming ?
O stay and hear ! your true-love's coming
That can sing both high and low ;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journeys end in lovers' meeting -
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love ? 'tis not hereafter ;
Present mirth hath present laughter ;
what's to come is still unsure :
In delay there lies no plenty,-
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
It Was A Lover And His Lass
It was a lover and his lass
With a hey and a ho, and a hey-nonino !
That o'er the green corn-field did pass
In the spring-time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing hey ding a ding :
Sweet lovers love the Spring.
Between the acres of the rye
These pretty country folks would lie :
This carol they began that hour,
How that life was but a flower :
And therefore take the present time
With a hey and a ho, and a hey-nonino !
For love is crowned with the prime,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing hey ding a ding :
Sweet lovers love the Spring.
Sonnet XVIII
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 dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest :
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet XXX
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste :
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight :
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
Sonnet LVII
Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire ?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.
Sonnet LXVI
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly doctor-like controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill :
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
Sonnet LXXV
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure;
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
Sonnet CIV
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah ! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived :
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred;
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
Sonnet CIX
O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.
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