Of the Father’s love begotten, ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see, evermore and evermore!

At His Word the worlds were framèd; He commanded; it was done:
Heaven and earth and depths of ocean in their threefold order one;
All that grows beneath the shining
Of the moon and burning sun, evermore and evermore!

He is found in human fashion, death and sorrow here to know,

When I do this begin to apprehend,
My heart, my soul, and mind, begins to bend

To God-ward, and sincerely for to love
His son, his ways, his people, and to move

With brokenness of spirit after him
Who broken was, and killed for my sin.

Now is mine heart grown holy, now it cleaves
To Jesus Christ my Lord, and now it leaves

Those ways that wicked be; it mourns because
It can conform no more unto the laws

Of God, who loved me when I was vile,
And of sweet Jesus, who did reconcile

I would unto my fair restore
A simple thing:
The flushing cheek she had before!
Out-velveting
No more, no more,
On our sad shore,
The carmine grape, the moth's auroral wing.

Ah, say how winds in flooding grass
Unmoor the rose;
Or guileful ways the salmon pass
To sea, disclose;
For so, alas,
With Love, alas,
With fatal, fatal Love a girlhood goes.

This man knew out the secret ways of love,
No man could paint such things who did not know.
And now she's gone, who was his Cyprian,
And you are here, who are ‘The Isles’ to me.

And here's the thing that lasts the whole thing out:
The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.

When you are very old, at evening

You’ll sit and spin beside the fire, and say,

Humming my songs, ‘Ah well, ah well-a-day!

When I was young, of me did Ronsard sing.’

None of your maidens that doth hear the thing,

Albeit with her weary task foredone,

But wakens at my name, and calls you one

Blest, to be held in long remembering.



I shall be low beneath the earth, and laid

On sleep, a phantom in the myrtle shade,

While you beside the fire, a grandame grey,

Us godly fear delightful unto thee,
That fear that God himself delights to see

Bear sway in them that love him? then he will
Thy godly mind in this request fulfil.

By giving thee a fear that tremble shall,
At every trip thou takest, lest thou fall,

And him offend, or hurt thyself by sin,
Or cause poor souls that always blind have been

To stumble at thy falls, and harder be
Against their own salvation and thee.

That fear that of itself would rather choose
The rod, than to offend or to abuse

TWO ladies to the summit of my mind
Have clomb, to hold an argument of love.
The one has wisdom with her from above,
For every noblest virtue well designed:
The other, beauty's tempting power refined
And the high charm of perfect grace approve:
And I, as my sweet Master's will doth move,
At feet of both their favors am reclined.
Beauty and Duty in my soul keep strife,
At question if the heart such course can take
And 'twixt the two ladies hold its love complete.
The fount of gentle speech yields answer meet,

LESTENYT, lordynges, both elde and yinge,
How this rose began to sprynge;
Swych a rose to myn lykynge
   In al this word ne knowe I non.

The Aungil came fro hevene tour,
To grete Marye with gret honour,
And seyde sche xuld bere the flour
   That xulde breke the fyndes bond.

The flour sprong in heye Bedlem,
That is bothe bryht and schen:
The rose is Mary hevene qwyn,
   Out of here bosum the blosme sprong.

The ferste braunche is ful of myht,

Lestenyt, lordynges, both elde and yinge,
How this rose began to sprynge;
Swych a rose to myn lykynge
In al this word ne knowe I non.

The aungil came fro hevene tour
To grete Marye with gret honour,
And seyde sche xuld bere the flour
That xulde breke the fyndes bond.

The flour sprong in heye Bedlem,
That is bothe bryht and schen:
The rose is Mary, hevene qwen,
Out of here bosum the blosme sprong.

The ferste braunche is ful of myht,
That sprong on Crystemesse nyht,
The sterre schon over Bedlem bryht

Melpomene, the muse of tragic songs,
With mournful tunes, in stole of dismal hue,
Assist a silly nymph to wail her woe,
And leave thy lusty company behind.

Thou luckless wreath! becomes not me to wear
The poplar tree for triumph of my love:
Then as my joy, my pride of love, is left,
Be thou unclothed of thy lovely green;

And in thy leaves my fortune written be,
And them some gentle wind let blow abroad,
That all the world may see how false of love
False Paris hath to his OEnone been.