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 doth impart
As what their hands do hold, their heads do know,
And knowing love, and loving, lay apart,
As sacred things, far from all danger's show.

But that rich fool who by blind Fortune's lot
The richest gem of love and life enjoys,
And can with foul abuse such beauties blot;

I hear some say, "This man is not in love."
"What? Can he love? A likely thing," they say;
"Read but his verse, and it will easily prove."
O judge not rashly, gentle Sir, I pray.
Because I trifle loosely in this sort,
As one that fain his sorrows would beguile,
You now suppose me all this time in sport,
And please yourself with this conceit the while.
Ye shallow censors, sometime see ye not
In greatest perils some men pleasant be?
Where fame by death is only to be got,
They resolute? So stands the case with me.

Do not reproach me, Ladies, if I've loved
And felt a thousand torches burn my veins,
A thousand griefs, a thousand biting pains
And all my days to bitter tears dissolved.

Thus, Ladies, do not denigrate my name.
If I did wrong, the pain and punishment
Are now. Don't file their daggers to a point.
You must know, Love is master of the game:

No need of Vulcan to explain your fire,
Nor of Adonis to excuse your desire,
But with less cause and far less occasion,

As the whim takes her, idly she can curse

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
I marvelled, my Belovèd, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine--
But...so much to thee? Can I pour your wine
While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.
Then, love me, Love! Look on me--breathe on me!
As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
For love, to give up acres and degree,

I stood where Love in brimming armfuls bore
Slight wanton flowers and foolish toys of fruit:
And round him ladies thronged in warm pursuit,
Fingered and lipped and proffered the strange store.
And from one hand the petal and the core
Savoured of sleep; and cluster and curled shoot
Seemed from another hand like shame's salute,—
Gifts that I felt my cheek was blushing for.
At last Love bade my Lady give the same:
And as I looked, the dew was light thereon;
And as I took them, at her touch they shone
With inmost heaven-hue of the heart of flame.

What good is it to me that once you praised
The golden splendour of my plaited hair,
Or that to two bright Suns you would compare
The beauty of my eyes, from which Love gazed

And shot the cruel darts so expertly ?
Where are you now, tears that so quickly dried ?
Or death, which was to prove you would abide
By oath of love and solemn loyalty ?

Or did you seek from malice to delude,
Slavery by pretending servitude ?
Forgive the thought, this once, my dearest one,

When grief and anger fiercely combine;

To Folly

With fools and children, good discretion bears;
Then, honest people, bear with Love and me,
Nor older yet, nor wiser made by years,
Amongst the rest of fools and children be;
Love, still a baby, plays with gauds and toys,
And, like a wanton, sports with every feather,
And idiots still are running after boys,
Then fools and children fitt'st to go together.
He still as young as when he first was born,
No wiser I than when as young as he;
You that behold us, laugh us not to scorn;

Love, banish'd Heav'n, on Earth was held in scorn,
Wand'ring abroad in need and beggary,
And wanting friends, though of a Goddess born,
Yet crav'd the alms of such as passed by.
I, like a man devout and charitable,
Clothed the naked, lodg'd this wand'ring guest,
With sighs and tears still furnishing his table
With what might make the miserable blest.
But this ungrateful, for my good desert,
Entic'd my thoughts against me to conspire,
Who gave consent to steal away my heart,
And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire.

Sometimes she is a child within mine arms,
Cowering beneath dark wings that love must chase,—
With still tears showering and averted face,
Inexplicably filled with faint alarms:
And oft from mine own spirit's hurtling harms
I crave the refuge of her deep embrace,—
Against all ills the fortified strong place
And sweet reserve of sovereign counter-charms.
And Love, our light at night and shade at noon,
Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away
All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day.
Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his tune;

A witless gallant a young wench that woo'd
(Yet his dull spirit her not one jot could move),
Entreated me, as e'er I wish'd his good,
To write him but one sonnet to his love;
When I, as fast as e'er my pen could trot,
Pour'd out what first from quick invention came,
Nor never stood one word thereof to blot,
Much like his wit that was to use the same;
But with my verses he his mistress won,
Which doted on the dolt beyond all measure.
But see, for you to Heav'n for phrase I run,
And ransack all Apollo's golden treasure;