1 If love now reigned as it hath been
2 And were rewarded as it hath sin,

3 Noble men then would sure ensearch
4 All ways whereby they might it reach,

5 But envy reigneth with such disdain
6 And causeth lovers outwardly to refrain,

7 Which puts them to more and more
8 Inwardly most grievous and sore.

9 The fault in whom I cannot set,
10 But let them tell which love doth get--

11 To lovers I put now sure this case:

1 Come live with me and be my love,
2 And we will all the pleasures prove,
3 That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
4 Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

5 And we will sit upon the rocks,
6 Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
7 By shallow rivers, to whose falls
8 Melodious birds sing madrigals.

9 And I will make thee beds of roses,
10 And a thousand fragrant posies,
11 A cap of flowers and a kirtle
12 Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle:

1 If all the world and love were young,
2 And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
3 These pretty pleasures might me move
4 To live with thee and be thy love.

5 Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
6 When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
7 And Philomel becometh dumb;
8 The rest complains of cares to come.

9 The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
10 To wayward winter reckoning yields;
11 A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
12 Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

1 I loathe that I did love,
2 In youth that I thought sweet;
3 As time requires for my behove,
4 Me thinks they are not meet.
5 My lusts they do me leave,
6 My fancies all be fled,
7 And tract of time begins to weave
8 Gray hairs upon my head.
9 For age, with stealing steps,
10 Hath clawed me with his crutch,
11 And lusty life away she leaps
12 As there had been none such.
13 My muse doth not delight
14 Me as she did before,

1 She lay, face downward, on her beaded arm,
2 In this her new, sweet dream of human bliss,
3 Her heart within her fearful, fluttering, warm,
4 Her lips yet pained with love's first timorous kiss.
5 She did not note the darkening afternoon,
6 She did not mark the lowering of the sky
7 O'er that great city. Earth had given its boon
8 Unto her lips, love touched her and passed by.

9 In one dread moment all the sky grew dark,
10 The hideous rain, the panic, the red rout,

1 Canst thou love me, lady?
2 I've not learn'd to woo:
3 Thou art on the shady
4 Side of sixty too.
5 Still I love thee dearly!
6 Thou hast lands and pelf:
7 But I love thee merely
8 Merely for thyself.

9 Wilt thou love me, fairest?
10 Though thou art not fair;
11 And I think thou wearest
12 Someone-else's hair.
13 Thou could'st love, though, dearly:
14 And, as I am told,
15 Thou art very nearly
16 Worth thy weight, in gold.

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy:
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye woman, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the east doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor aught but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so perservere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Never seek to tell thy love
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears--
Ah, she doth depart.

Soon as she was gone from me
A traveller came by
Silently, invisibly--
O, was no deny.

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft,-
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,-