How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the ... [+]
How Love came in, I do not know, Whether by th’ eye, or eare, or no: Or whether with the soule it came (At first) infused with the same: Whether in part ‘tis here or there, Or, like the ... [+]
A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness; A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction; An erring lace, which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher; A ... [+]
When Love with unconfinèd wings Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fetter’d to her eye, The birds, that wanton ... [+]
When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith ... [+]
Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forc'd fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the ... [+]
Hence loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born, In Stygian Cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy, Find out some uncouth cell, Where brooding ... [+]
Hence vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred, How little you bested, Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys; Dwell in some idle brain, And fancies fond with gaudy shapes ... [+]
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love, Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five grey hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout, With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, Take you a ... [+]
Death, be not proud, though some have called 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 ... [+]
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No
... [+]
On Turning up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785
Little, artful, cowering, timid beast,
Oh, what a panic is in your heart!
You need not start away so hasty
With bickering prattle!
I
... [+]