By the old strange seas loud-breaking
Lo! my love for ever stands,
And the waves the shingle shaking
Are not whiter than her hands;
And her breath is sweet as roses
That the dewy morn discloses
When June holds the laughing lands.

Never, though the swift years perish,
Shall she quit that ancient shore,
And the flowers her sweet hands cherish
Shall be sweet for evermore:
And the seas' eternal metre
For her sake shall echo sweeter
As their endless chant they pour.

Ever, young and pure and tender,
Doth she wait by those far streams,

Come away, come sweet Love,
The golden morning breakes:
All the earth, all the ayre,
Of love and pleasure speakes.
Teach thine armes then to embrace,
And sweet Rosie lips to kisse:
And mixe our soules in mutuall blisse.
Eyes were made for beauties grace,
Viewing, ruing Loves long paine:
Procur'd by beauties rude disdaine.

Come away, come sweet Love,
The golden morning wasts:
While the Sunne from his Sphere
His fierie arrowes casts,
Making all the shadowes flie,
Playing, staying in the Groave:
To entertaine the stealth of love.

A LAS for me for that my love is dead!
Buried deep down, and may not rise again;
Self-murdered, vanished, gone beyond recall,
And this is all my pain

'Tis not that she I loved is gone from me,
She lives and grows more lovely day by day;
Not Death could kill my love, but though she lives,
My love has died away.

Nor was it that a form or face more fair
Forswore my troth, for so my love had proved
Eye-deep alone, not rooted in the soul;
And 'twas not thus I loved

Nor that by too long dalliance with delight

I like your love the best of all:
It does not ask things of me for love's sake,
It does not demand things of me for love's sake,
It does not send me away for love's sake,
It does not call me to itself for love's sake,
It acknowledges no debts incurred for love's sake,
It places no debts upon my heart for love's sake,
It just lets me alone, just lets love alone, for love's sake,
It just loves and lets everything else take care of itself, for love's sake:
Yes, I like your love the best of all.

I like your love the best of all:

The morning spreads great wings of light
O'er sea and sod,
And breathes to the awakening soul
The sense of God.

The air is one that bends the flower
Or storms the oak,
So art and love are one in all
Us human folk.

Some praise the looks, and others praise the locks,
Of their fair queens in love, with curious words.
Some laud the breast where love his treasure locks,
All like the eye that life and love affords.
But none of these frail beauties and unstable
Shall make my pen riot in pompous style;
More greater gifts shall my grave muse enable,
Whereat severer brows shall never smile.
I praise her honey-sweeter eloquence,
Which from the fountain of true wisdom floweth,
Her modest mien that matcheth excellence,
Her matchless faith which from her virtue groweth.

O, pleasing thoughts, apprentices of love,
Fore-runners of desire, sweet mithridates
The poison of my sorrows to remove,
With whom my hopes and fear full oft debates;
Enrich yourselves and me by your self riches,
Which are the thoughts you spend on heaven-bred beauty,
Rouse you my muse beyond our poets' pitches,
And working wonders, yet say all is duty;
Use you no eaglets' eyes, nor phoenix' feathers,
To tower the heaven from whence heaven's wonder sallies.
For why? Your sun sings sweetly to her weathers,
Making a spring of winter in the valleys.

Love guards the roses of thy lips
And flies about them like a bee;
If I approach he forward skips,
And if I kiss he stingeth me.

Love in thine eyes doth build his bower
And sleeps within their pretty shine;
And if I look the boy will lour
And from their orbs shoot shafts divine.

Love works thy heart within his fire
And in my tears doth firm the same;
And if I tempt it will retire,
And of my plaints doth make a game.

Love, let me cull her choicest flowers;
And pity me, and calm her eye;

I hope and fear, I pray and hold my peace,
Now freeze my thoughts and straight they fry again,
I now admire and straight my wonders cease,
I loose my bonds and yet myself restrain;
This likes me most that leaves me discontent,
My courage serves and yet my heart doth fail,
My will doth climb whereas my hopes are spent,
I laugh at love, yet when he comes I quail;
The more I strive, the duller bide I still,
I would be thralled, and yet I freedom love,
I would redress, yet hourly feed mine ill,
I would repine, and dare not once reprove;

Ah, lovely youth! thy tender lay
May not thy gentle life prolong:
See'st thou yon nightingale a prey?
The fierce hawk hovering o'er his song?

His little heart is large with love:
He sweetly hails his evening star,
And Fate's more pointed arrows move,
Insidious, from his eye afar.