Deare Love, alas, how have I wronged thee,
That ceaselesly thou still dost follow me?
My heart of Diamond cleare, and hard I find,
May yet be pierc'd with one of the same kind,
Which hath in it ingraven a love more pure,
Then spotlesse white, and deepe still to endure,
Wrought in with teares of never resting paine,
Carv'd with the sharpest point of curs'd disdaine.
Raine oft doth wash away a slender marke,
Teares make mine firmer, and as one small sparke
In straw may make a fire: so sparkes of love
Kindles incessantly in me to move;

Where servants against masters do rebel,
The commonweal may be accounted hell.
For if the feet the head shall hold in scorn.
The city's state will fall, and be forlorn.
This error, London! waiteth on thy state!
Servants, amend; and masters, leave to hate!
Let Love abound; and Virtue reign in all,
So God will hold his hand, that threatneth thrall!

In whatso love-questing, wherein, Excepting fireflaught, there is not,
For amaze, if a harvest consume, Sure reason in aught there is not.

A bird, to whose heart it ne'er fell With sorrow to make acquaintance,
A branch on the tree of his life, With leaves of mirth fraught, there is not.

No help in Love's workshop there is For infidelity's presence:
What fuel is there for Hell-fire, If Boulehéb naught there is not?

In the soul-sellers' canon good works In toping consist and good breeding;
There lineage is not esteemed And reckoning sought there is not.

I love summer, the season of flowers,
When the birds sing beneath the bloom;
But I consider winter more pleasing,
For more enjoyment is accorded me;
And when one sees one's source of joy
It is right and proper
That one should be more charming and cheerful.

Now I have joy and am happy,
And my honor has been restored,
And never will I go elsewhere,
And I will not seek others' winnings,
For now I know indeed
That whoever waits is wise,
And whoever frets is a fool.

I have long been in distress,
And troubled about my situation

What are poets? Are they only drums commanding?
—Trumpets snarling, moving men to hate and ravage?
Were their songs of war the snares of Trade demanding
—Lives, and binding men to gods senile and savage?

What are soldiers? Only power, to be broken
—On the wheels of Business when there is no battle?
“War to end war,” was that but falsely spoken?
—Whom has war set free? Have rifles stopped their rattle?

Many suffer hunger while the few still plunder.
—Dreams of peace and brotherhood are all undone.

O, ye who gave to Ireland
Your love and life and all,
Who leaped into the flames of death
When rang her anguished call;
Pray, pray for us this Easter morn
That we may worthy be
Of Ireland's past, of all who died
On Ireland's Calvary.

As the windhover
Drops on the shrew,
Love, O young lover,
Swoops down on you,
Bears your heart heavenward,
Tears it in two;

Swift with his capture
Soars through the light—
Yours the fierce rapture
Of agonised flight,
Talon-torn, terror-winged,
Into blind night.

Ere yet the dawn
Pushed rosy fingers up the arch of day
And smiled its promise to the voiceless prime,
Love sat and patterns wove at life's swift loom.
He flung the suns into the soundless arch,
Appointed them their courses in the deep,
To keep His great time-harmonies and blaze
As beacons in the ebon fields of night.
Love balanced them and held them firm and true,
Poised 'twixt attractive and repulsive drift
Amid the throngs of heaven. What though this power
Was ever known to us as gravity,
Its first and last celestial name is Love.

Take Time while Time doth last,
Mark how Fair fadeth fast,
Beware if Envy reign,
Take heed of proud Disdain.
Hold fast now in thy youth,
Regard thy vowed Truth,
Lest when thou waxeth old
Friends fail and Love grow cold.

Love's a fever of the mind,
'Tis a grief that none can cure
Till the nymph you love prove kind:
She can give you ease again,
She can best remove the pain
Which you for her endure.

Be not ever, then, repining,
Sighing, denying, canting, whining;
Spend not time in vain pursuing;
If she does not love you—make her;
If she loves you—then forsake her;
'Tis the modish way of wooing.