1. Astrophel and Stella – Philip Sidney
Loving in
truth, and fain in verse my love to show
That she (dear She) might take some
pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading
might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity
grace obtain;
I sought fit words to paint the
blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to
entertain:
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if
thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my
sun-burn’d brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s
stay,
Invention, Nature’s child, fled
step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seem’d but
strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and
helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself
for spite--
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in
thy heart and write.”
2. One
Day I Wrote her Name - Edmund Spenser
One
day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a
second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains
his prey
"Vain
man," said she, "that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize;
For
I myself shall like to this decay
And eke my name be wiped out likewise
"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise
To
die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And
in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."
3. Shall I Compare Thee – William Shakespeare
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 wand’rest 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.
4. When in Disgrace in Men’s Eyes –
William Shakespeare
When,
in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf
heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with
friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply
I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at
heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I
scorn to change my state with kings.
5. To Celia – Ben Jonson
Drink
to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And
I’ll not look for wine.
The
thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth
ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I
would not change for thine.
I
sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not
so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope, that there
It
could not withered be.
But
thou thereon didst only breathe,
And
sent’st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and
smells, I swear,
Not
of itself, but thee.
6. My Sweetest Lesbia – Thomas Campion
My
sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love,
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them.
Heaven’s great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive,
But soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we
sleep one ever-during night.
If all would lead their lives in love like me,
Then bloody swords and armor should not be;
No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move,
Unless alarm
came from the camp of love.
But fools do live, and waste their little light,
And seek with pain their ever-during night.
When
timely death my life and fortune ends,
Let not my
hearse be vexed with mourning friends,
But let all lovers, rich in triumph, come
And with sweet pastimes grace my happy tomb;
And
Lesbia, close up thou my little light,
And crown with love my ever-during night.
D. B. Gavani
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