O GRANITE nature; like a mountain height
Which pierces heaven! yet with foundations deep,
Rooted where earth's majestic forces sleep,
In quiet breathing on the breast of night:--

The Canterbury Tales; THE FRANKELEYNS TALE

Sonnet XVIII: With What Sharp Checks

© Sir Philip Sidney

With what sharp checks I in myself am shent,
When into Reason's audit I do go:
And by just counts myself a bankrupt know
Of all the goods, which heav'n to me hath lent:

The Third Satire Of Dr. John Donne

Compassion checks my spleen, yet Scorn denies
The tears a passage thro' my swelling eyes;
To laugh or weep at sins, might idly show,
Unheedful passion, or unfruitful woe.
Satyr! arise, and try thy sharper ways,
If ever Satyr cur'd an old disease.

Sonnet XIX: On Cupid's Bow

© Sir Philip Sidney

On Cupid's bow how are my heartstrings bent,
That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same?
When most I glory, then I feel most shame:
I willing run, yet while I run, repent.

Sonnet XVI: In Nature Apt

In nature apt to like when I did see
Beauties, which were of many carats fine,
My boiling sprites did thither soon incline,
And, Love, I thought that I was full of thee:

Sonnet VIII: Love, Born In Greece

Love, born in Greece, of late fled from his native place,
Forc'd by a tedious proof, that Turkish harden'd heart
Is no fit mark to pierce with his fine pointed dart,
And pleas'd with our soft peace, stayed here his flying race.

Ultima Thule: My Cathedral

Like two cathedral towers these stately pines

Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;

Sonnet XXVI: Though Dusty Wits

Though dusty wits dare scorn astrology,
And fools can think those lamps of purest light
Whose numbers, ways, greatness, eternity,
Promising wonders, wonder do invite,

Sonnet XVII: His Mother Dear Cupid

His mother dear Cupid offended late,
Because that Mars grown slacker in her love,
With pricking shot he did not throughly more
To keep the pace of their first loving state.

Astrophel and Stella VII

When Nature made her chief work, Stella's eyes,In colour black why wrapt she beams so bright?Would she in beamy black, like painter wise,Frame daintiest lustre, mix'd of shades and light?Or did she else that sober hue devise,In object best to knit and strength our sight;Lest, if no veil these brave gleams did disguise,They, sunlike, should more dazzle than delight?Or would she her miraculous power show,That, whereas black seems beauty's contrary,She even in black doth make all beauties flow?Both so, and thus,--she, minding Love should bePlac'd ever there, gave him this mourning weedTo honour all their deaths who for her bleed