There is no rose of such virtue
As is the rose that bare Jesu:
Alleluia!

For in that rose containèd was
Heaven and earth in little space:
Res Miranda!

By that rose we well may see
There be One God in Persons Three:
Pares Forma!

The angels sang, the shepherds too:
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Gaudeamus!

Leave we all this worldly mirth
And follow we this joyful birth:
Transeamus!

Lady, helpe! Jesu, mercé!
 Timor mortis conturbat me.

Dred of deth, sorow of sin
 Trobels my hert ful grevously;
My soul it noyth with my lust then—
 Passio Christi conforta me.

For blindnes is a hevy thing,
 And to be def therwith only,
To lese my light and my hering—
 Passio Christi conforta me;

And to lese my tast and my smelling,
 And to be seke in my body;
Here have I lost al my liking—
 Passio Christi conforta me.

Thus God He yives and takes away,
 And, as He wil, so mot it be.

As in the depths of an ancient cavern
lost in the recesses of the mountain,
silently, these centuries, a drop
of water falls;
so in my dark and solitary heart,
in the most hidden secret of my vitals,
I have heard, this long time past, a tear
slowly falling.
What dark cranny filters it to me?
From what mysterious springs does it distil?
To what fertile torrent is it faithless?
From what far source is it to me consigned?
Who knows? . . . When I was a child my tears
were the celestial dew that morning sheds;

As in the age of shepherd king and queen,
Painted and frail amid her nodding bows,
Under the somber branches, and between
The green and mossy garden ways she goes,
With little mincing airs one keeps to pet
A darling and provoking perroquet.
Her long-trained robe is blue; the fan she holds
With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings,
So vaguely hints of vague erotic things
That her eye smiles, musing among its folds.
— Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth,
Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly,
In her divine unconscious pride of youth,

At such a time, of year and day,
In ages gone, that steep hill-brow
Cast down an evening shade, that lay
In shape the same as lies there now;
Though then no shadows wheel'd around
The things that now are on the ground.

The hill's high shape may long outstand
The house, of slowly-wasting stone;
The house may longer shade the land
Than man's on-gliding shade is shown;
The man himself may longer stay
Than stands the summer's rick of hay.

The trees that rise, with boughs o'er boughs,
To me for trees long-fall'n may pass;

As in a duskie and tempestuous Night,
A Starre is wont to spreade her Lockes of Gold,
And while her pleasant Rayes abroad are roll'd,
Some spiteful Cloude doth robbe us of her Sight:
(Faire Soule) in this black Age so shin'd thou bright,
And made all Eyes with Wonder thee beholde,
Till uglie Death depriving us of Light,
In his grimme mistie Armes thee did enfolde.
Who more shall vaunt true Beautie heere to see?
What Hope doth more in any Heart remaine,
That such Perfections shall his Reason raine?
If Beautie with thee born too died with thee?

“As I went up to London,”
I heard a stranger say—
Going up to London
In such a casual way!
He turned the magic phrase
That has haunted all my days
As though it were a common thing
For careless lips to say.
As he went up to London!
I'll wager many a crown
He never saw the road that I
Shall take to London town

When I go up to London
'Twill be in April weather.
I'll have a riband on my rein
And flaunt a scarlet feather;
The broom will toss its brush for me;
Two blackbirds and a thrush will be

As I went up the humber jumber,
Humber jumber jeenio,
There I met Sir Hoker Poker
Carrying away campeenio.

If I had had my tit-my-tat,
My tit-my-tat my teenio,
I'd never have let Sir Hoker Poker
Carry away campeenio.

As I went owre the Hill o' Hoos,
I met a bonny flock o' doos.
They were a' nick nackit,
They were a' brown backit,
Sic a bonny flock o' doos,
Commin' owre the Hill o' Hoos.
Swarm of Bees

As I went out, so I came in,
And out of the dead I saw the living spring;
Seven there were and six there be,
Tell me the riddle and then hang me.
A tit and its young from a nest between the jawbones of a gibbeted murderer