The Giant Book of Poetry Read online

  All the world’s a stage,

  and all the men and women merely players:

  they have their exits and their entrances;

  and one man in his time plays many parts,

  his acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

  mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.

  And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

  and shining morning face, creeping like snail

  unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

  sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

  made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

  full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

  jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

  seeking the bubble reputation

  even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

  in fair round belly with good capon lined,

  with eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

  full of wise saws and modern instances;

  and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

  into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

  with spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

  his youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

  for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

  turning again toward childish treble, pipes

  and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

  that ends this strange eventful history,

  is second childishness and mere oblivion,

  sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

  Sonnet XVII1

  Who will believe my verse in time to come,

  if it were filled with your most high deserts?

  Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb

  which hides your life and shows not half your parts.

  If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

  and in fresh numbers number all your graces,

  the age to come would say “this poet lies;

  such heavenly touches ne’er touch’d earthly faces.”

  So should my papers, yellowed with their age,

  be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,

  and your true rights be termed a poet’s rage

  and stretched meter of an antique song:

  but were some child of yours alive that time,

  you should live twice—in it, and in my rhyme.

  Sonnet XVIII2

  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

  rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

  and summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

  sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

  and often is his gold complexion dimmed,

  and every fair from fair sometime declines,

  by chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed:

  but thy eternal summer shall not fade,

  nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

  nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

  when in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,

  so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

  so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

  Sonnet XXXII1

  If thou survive my well-contented day,

  when that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover

  and shall by fortune once more re-survey

  these poor rude lines of thy deceasëd lover,

  compare them with the bett’ring of the time,

  and though they be outstripped by every pen,

  reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

  exceeded by the height of happier men.

  O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:

  ‘Had my friend’s Muse grown with this growing age,

  a dearer birth than this his love had brought,

  to march in ranks of better equipage;

  but since he died and poets better prove,

  theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love’.

  Sonnet LV2

  Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

  of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

  but you shall shine more bright in these contents

  than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.

  When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

  and broils root out the work of masonry,

  nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn

  the living record of your memory.

  ‘Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity

  shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

  even in the eyes of all posterity

  that wear this world out to the ending doom.

  So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

  you live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

  Sonnet CXXX1

  My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

  coral is far more red, than her lips’ red;

  if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

  if hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

  I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

  but no such roses see I in her cheeks;

  and in some perfumes is there more delight

  than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

  that music hath a far more pleasing sound;

  I grant I never saw a goddess go—

  my mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground,

  and yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare,

  as any she belied with false compare.

  Sonnet CXXXVIII2

  When my love swears that she is made of truth,

  I do believe her though, I know she lies,

  that she might think me some untutored youth,

  unlearnëd in the world’s false subtleties.

  Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

  although she knows my days are past the best,

  simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;

  on both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.

  but wherefore says she not she is unjust?

  And wherefore say not I that I am old?

  O! love’s best habit is in seeming trust,

  and age in love, loves not to have years told.

  therefore I lie with her and she with me,

  and in our faults by lies we flattered be.

  Sonnet CXLIII1

  Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch

  one of her feathered creatures broke away,

  sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch

  in pursuit of the thing she would have stay;

  whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,

  cries to catch her whose busy care is bent

  to follow that which flies before her face,

  not prizing her poor infant’s discontent;

  so runn’st thou after that which flies from thee,

  whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;

  but if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,

  and play the mother’s part, kiss me, be kind;

  so will I pray that thou mayst have thy ‘Will,’

  if thou turn back and my loud crying still.

  Sonnet CXLVII1

  My love is as a fever, longing still,

  for that which longer nurseth the disease;

  feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

  the uncertain sickly appetite to please.

  My reason, the physician to my love,

  angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

  hath left me, and I desperate now approve

  desire is death, which physic did except.

  Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,

  and frantic-mad with evermore unrest;

  my thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,

&nb
sp; at random from the truth vainly expressed;

  for I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,

  who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

  Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow2

  Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

  creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

  to the last syllable of recorded time;

  and all our yesterdays have lighted fools

  the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!

  Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

  that struts and frets his hour upon the stage

  and then is heard no more: it is a tale

  told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

  signifying nothing.

  Thomas Campion (1567 – 1619)

  Integer Vitae1

  The man of life upright,

  whose guiltless heart is free

  from all dishonest deeds,

  or thought of vanity;

  the man whose silent days

  in harmless joys are spent,

  whom hopes cannot delude,

  nor sorrow discontent;

  that man needs neither towers

  nor armor for defense,

  nor secret vaults to fly

  from thunder’s violence:

  he only can behold

  with unaffrighted eyes

  the horrors of the deep

  and terrors of the skies.

  Thus, scorning all the cares

  that fate or fortune brings,

  he makes the heaven his book,

  his wisdom heavenly things;

  good thoughts his only friends,

  his wealth a well-spent age,

  the earth his sober inn

  and Quiet pilgrimage.

  Sir Henry Wotton (1568 – 1639)

  Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton′s Wife1

  He first deceased; she for a little tried

  to live without him, liked it not, and died.

  John Donne (1572-1631)

  Community2

  Good we must love, and must hate ill,

  for ill is ill, and good good still,

  but there are things indifferent,

  which we may neither hate, nor love,

  but one, and then another prove,

  as we shall find our fancy bent.

  If then at first wise Nature had

  made women either good or bad,

  then some we might hate, and some choose,

  but since she did them so create,

  that we may neither love, nor hate,

  only this rests, All, all may use

  if they were good it would be seen,

  good is as visible as green,

  and to all eyes it self betrays:

  if they were bad, they could not last,

  bad doth it self, and others waste,

  so, they deserve nor blame, nor praise.

  But they are ours as fruits are ours,

  he that but tastes, he that devours,

  and he that leaves all, doth as well:

  changed loves are but changed sorts of meat,

  and when he hath the kernel eat,

  who doth not fling away the shell?

  Confined Love1

  Some man unworthy to be possessor

  of old or new love, himself being false or weak,

  thought his pain and shame would be lesser,

  if on womankind he might his anger wreak;

  and thence a law did grow,

  one might but one man know;

  but are other creatures so?

  Are sun, moon, or stars by law forbidden

  to smile where they list, or lend away their light?

  Are birds divorced or are they chidden

  if they leave their mate, or lie abroad a night?

  Beasts do no jointures lose

  though they new lovers choose;

  but we are made worse than those.

  Who e’er rigged fair ships to lie in harbors,

  and not to seek lands, or not to deal with all?

  Or built fair houses, set trees, and arbors,

  only to lock up, or else to let them fall?

  Good is not good, unless

  a thousand it possess,

  but doth waste with greediness.

  Death1

  Death be not proud, though some have callëd thee

  mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,

  for, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,

  die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me;

  from rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

  much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

  and soonest our best men with thee do go,

  rest of their bones, and souls delivery.

  Thou’art slave to Fate, chance, kings,

  and desperate men,

  and dost with poison, war, and sicknesses dwell,

  and poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

  and better then they stroke; why swell’st thou then?

  One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

  and death shall be no more. Death thou shalt die.

  The Computation2

  For the first twenty years, since yesterday,

  I scarce believed, thou couldst be gone away;

  for forty more, I fed on favors past,

  and forty on hopes that thou wouldst they might last;

  tears drowned one hundred, and sighs blew out two;

  a thousand, I did neither think nor do,

  or not divide, all being one thought of you;

  or in a thousand more, forgot that too.

  Yet call not this long life; but think that I

  am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die?

  The Curse1

  Whoever guesses, thinks, or dreams, he knows

  who is my mistress, wither by this curse;

  him, only for his purse

  may some dull whore to love dispose,

  and then yield unto all that are his foes;

  may he be scorned by one, whom all else scorn,

  forswear to others, what to her he hath sworn,

  with fear of missing, shame of getting, torn.

  Madness his sorrow, gout his cramp, may he

  make, by but thinking, who hath made him such;

  and may he feel no touch

  of conscience, but of fame, and be

  anguished, not that ’twas sin, but that ’twas she;

  In early and long scarceness may he rot

  for land which had been his, if he had not

  himself incestuously an heir begot.

  May he dream treason, and believe that he

  meant to perform it, and confesses, and die,

  and no record tell why;

  his sons, which none of his may be,

  inherit nothing but his infamy;

  or may he so long parasites have fed,

  that he would fain be theirs whom he hath bred,

  and at the last be circumcised for bread.

  The venom of all step dames, gamesters’ gall,

  what tyrants and their subjects interwish,

  what plants, mine, beasts, fowl, fish,

  can contribute, all ill, which all

  prophets or poets spake, and all which shall

  be annexed in schedules unto this by me,

  fall on that man; For if it be a she

  nature beforehand hath out-cursëd me.

  William Drummond (1585 – 1649)

  Life1

  This Life, which seems so fair,

  is like a bubble blown up in the air

  by sporting children’s breath,

  who chase it everywhere

  and strive who can most motion it beQueath.

  And though it sometimes seem of its own might

  like to an eye of gold to be fixed there,

  and firm to hover in that empty height,

  that on
ly is because it is so light.

  But in that pomp it doth not long appear;

  for when ’tis most admired, in a thought,

  because it erst was nought, it turns to nought.

  Robert Herrick (1591 – 1674)

  To the Virgins2

  Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

  old time is still a-flying:

  and this same flower that smiles to-day

  to-morrow will be dying.

  The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

  the higher he’s a-getting,

  the sooner will his race be run,

  and nearer he’s to setting.

  That age is best which is the first,

  when youth and blood are warmer;

  but being spent, the worse, and worst

  times still succeed the former.

  Then be not coy, but use your time,

  and while ye may go marry:

  for having lost but once your prime

  you may for ever tarry.

  Upon Julia’s Clothes1

  Whenas in silks my Julia goes,

  then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows

  that liquefaction of her clothes.

  Next, when I cast mine eyes and see

  that brave vibration each way free;

  O how that glittering taketh me!

  Thomas Carew (1595 – 1639)

  Ingrateful Beauty Threatened2

  Know, Celia, since thou art so proud,

  ‘twas I that gave thee thy renown;

  thou had’st in the forgotten crowd

  of common beauties lived unknown,

  had not my verse exhaled thy name,

  and with it imped the wings of Fame.

  That killing power is none of thine:

  I gave it to thy voice and eyes;

  thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;

  thou art my star, shin’st in my skies:

  then dart not from thy borrowed sphere

  lightning on him that fixed thee there.

  Tempt me with such affrights no more,

  lest what I made I uncreate;