MELANCHOLY. BY BEAUMONT. Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly; There's nought in this life sweet, Were men but wise to see it, But only Melancholy; O sweetest Melancholy! Welcome, folded arm…

THE BRIDE AT THE ALTAR. Character: Flushed yet Lady-like Beauty, with ecstatic Angels regarding her. Fainter, the same. Behold, while she before the altar stands, Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks, And blesses her with his two hap…

JUPITER AND MAIA. Character: Young and Innocent but Conscious and Sensuous Beauty. Painter, Correggio. Behold how goodly my fair love does lie In proud humility ! Like unto Maia, whenas Jove her took In Tempe, lying on the flowery grass, '…

Then listen I To the celestial Sirens' harmony, That sit upon the nine infolded spheres, And sing to those that hold the vital shears, And turn the adamantine spindle round, On which the fates of gods and men is wound. Such sweet compulsio…

Thus it fell upon a night, When there was nought but starrie light, She was vanish'd right as she list, That no wight but herself wist, And that was at midnight tide. The world was still on every side. With open head and foot all bare ; He…

A MEETING OF WITCHES, FOR THE PURPOSE OF DOING A MISCHIEF TO A JOYFUL HOUSE, AND BRINGING AN EVIL SPIRIT INTO BIRTH IN THE MIDST OF IT. From the Masque of Queens. Charm. The owl is abroad, the hat and the toad, And so is the cat-a-mountain…

THE WITCH. From the Pastoral Fragment, entitled " The Sad Shepherd." Aiken. Know ye the witch's dell ? ScathlocTc. No more than I do know the walks of hell. Aiken. Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell, Down in a pit o'ergrown with brakes …

I Must Have Wanton Poets by Christopher Marlowe I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, Musicians, that with touching of a string May draw the pliant king which way I please: Music and poetry is his delight; Therefore I'll have Italian ma…

OTHER TITANS FALLEN. Scarce images of life, one here, one there, Lay vast and edgeways ; like a dismal cirque Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor, When the chill rain begins at shut of eve In dull November, and their chancel vault, The he…

A FALLEN GOD. the bright Titan, frenzied with new woes, Unused to bend, by hard compulsion, bent His spirit to the sorrow of the time; And all along a dismal rack of clouds, Upon the boundaries of day and night, He stretch'd himself, in gr…

Give yourself no unnecessary pain, My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, mother, tie My girdle for me, and bind up this hair In any simple knot. Ay, that does well; And yours, I see, is coming down. How often Have we done this for one another! now …

A ROCK AND A CHASM. I remember, Two miles on this side of the fort, the road Crosses a deep ravine: 't is rough and narrow, And winds with short turns down the precipice ; And in its depth there is a mighty rock, Which has, from unimaginab…

CONTEMPLATION OF VIOLENCE. (by a man not bad.) Spare me now. I am as one lost in a midnight wood, Who dares not ask some harmless passenger The path across the wilderness, lest he, As my thoughts are, should be a murderer.

A GARISH DAY. (said by a potent ruffian.) The all-beholding sun yet shines ; I hear A busy stir of men about the streets ; I see the bright sky through the window-panes : It is a garish, broad, and peering day; Loud, light, suspicious, ful…

Day-Dream My eyes make pictures when they're shut: I see a fountain large and fair, A Willow and a ruined Hut, And thee, and me, and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow! Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green Willow!…

THE CONCLUSION TO PART II A little child, a limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself, A fairy thing with red round cheeks, That always finds, and never seeks, Makes such a vision to the sight As fills a father's eyes with light; And pleasure…

WORK WITHOUT HOPE. LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827. All Nature seems at work. Stags leave their lair , The bees are stirring , birds are on the wing , And Winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring !…

THE HEATHEN DIVINITIES MERGED INTO ASTROLOGY. FROM THE TRANSLATION OF SCHILLER'S PICCOLOMINI. Fable is Love's world, his home, his birthplace : Delightedly dwells he 'mong fays and talismans, And spirits: and delightedly believes Divinitie…

COMUS THE SORCERER. Thyrsis tells the Brothers of a Lady, that their Sister has fallen into the hands of the Sorcerer Comus, dwelling in a wood. Within the navel of this hideous wood, Immur'd in cypress shades, a sorcerer dwells, Of Bacchu…

FUNERAL DIRGE. (Sung by a Mother over her Son.) Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves of flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. Call unto his funeral dole The ant, t…

MELANCHOLY. BY BEAUMONT. Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly; There's nought in this life sweet, Were men but wise to see it, But only Melancholy; O sweetest Melancholy! Welcome, folded arm…

A CATCH OF SATYRS. Silenus bids his Satyrs awaken a couple of Sylvans, who have fallen asleep while they should have kept watch. Buz, quoth the blue fly, Hum, quoth the bee ; Buz and hum they cry, And so do we, In his ear, in his nose, Thu…

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That hill and valley, grove and field, And all the craggy mountains yield. There will we sit upon the rocks, And see the shepherds …

BEAUTY BEYOND EXPRESSION. If all the pens that ever poets held Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, And ev'ry sweetness that inspired their hearts, And minds, and muses on admired themes; If all the heavenly quintessence they 's…

Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs, Had in him those brave translunary things, That the first poets had ; his raptures were All air and fire, which made his verses clear: For that fine madness still he did retain, Which rightly s…