Nature poems

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Though dustie wits dare scorne Astrologie,And foole can thinke those Lampes of purest light,Whose numbers weighs greatnesse eternitie,Promising wonders, wonder do invite:To haue for no cause birthright in the skie,But for to spangle the black weedes of night:Or for some brawle, which in that chamber hie,They should still daunce to please a gazers sight

Astrophel and Stella: 19

© Sir Philip Sidney

On Cupids bow how are my heart-strings bent,That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same?When most I glorie, then I feele most shame:I willing run, yet while I run, repent

Astrophel and Stella: 18

© Sir Philip Sidney

With what sharp checkes I in my selfe am shent,When into Reasons audite I do go:And by just counts my self a banckrout knowOf all those goods, which heau'n to me haue lent:Vnable quite to pay euen Natures rent,Which vnto it by birth-right I do ow:And which is worse, no good excuse can show,But that my wealth I haue most id'ly spent

Astrophel and Stella: 17

© Sir Philip Sidney

His mother deare Cupid offended late,Because that Mars growne slacker in her loue,With pricking shot he did not througly moue,To keepe the pace of their louing state

Astrophel and Stella: 16

© Sir Philip Sidney

In nature apt to like when I did seeBeauties, which were of manie Carrets fine,My boyling sprits did thither soone inclyne,And, Loue, I thought that I was full of thee:But finding not those restlesse flames in me,Which others said did make their soules to pine:I thought those babes of some pinnes hurt did whine,By my soule judgeing what Loues paines might be

Astrophel and Stella: 11

© Sir Philip Sidney

In truth, O Loue, with what a boyish kindThou doest proceed in thy most serious waies:That when the heau'n to thee his best displayes,Yet of that best thou leau'st the best behind

Astrophel and Stella: 10

© Sir Philip Sidney

Reason, in faith thou art well seru'd, that stillWouldst brabling be with sense and loue in me:I rather wisht thee clime the Muses hill,Or reach the fruite of Natures choisest tree,Or seeke heau'ns course, or heau'ns inside to see:Why shouldst thou toyle our thornie soile to till?Leaue sense, and those which senses objects be:Deale thou with powers of thoughts, leaue loue to wil

Astrophel and Stella: 9

© Sir Philip Sidney

Queene Vertues court, which some call Stellas face;Prepar'd by Natures choisest furniture,Hath his front built of Alabaster pure;Gold is the couering of that stately place

Astrophel and Stella: 8

© Sir Philip Sidney

Loue borne in Greece, of late fled from his natiue place,Forc'd by a tedious proofe, that Turkish hardned hartIs no fit marke to pierce with his fine pointed dart:And pleasd with our soft peace, staid here his flying race,But finding these North climes do coldly him embrace,Not vsed to frozen clips, he straue to find some part,Wherewith most ease and warmth he might employ his art:At length he perch'd himselfe in Stellas joyfull face,Whose faire skin, beamy eyes like mourning sun on snow,Deceiu'd the quaking boy, who thought from so pure light,Effects of liuely heate, must needs in nature grow

Astrophel and Stella: 7

© Sir Philip Sidney

When Nature made her chiefe worke, Stellas eyes,In colour blacke, why wrapt she beames so bright?Would she in beamie black, like painter wise,Frame daintiest lustre, mixt of shades and light?Or did she else that sober hue deuise,In object best to knit and strength our sight,Least if no vaile these braue gleames did disguise,They sun-like should more dazle then delight?Or would she her miraculous power show,That whereas blacke seemes Beauties contrary,She euen in blacke doth make all beauties flow?Both so and thus, she minding Loue should bePlaced euer there, gaue him this mourning weed,To honour all their deaths, who for her bleed

Astrophel and Stella: 5

© Sir Philip Sidney

It is most true, that eyes are form'd to serueThe inward light: and that the heauenly partOught to be king, from whose rules who do swerue,Rebels of Nature striue for their owne smart

Astrophel and Stella: 3

© Sir Philip Sidney

Let daintie wits crie on the Sisters Nine,That brauely maskt, their fancies may be told:Or Pindars Apes, flaunt they in phrases fine,Enam'ling with pied flowers their thoughts of gold:Or else let them in statelie glorie shine,Ennobling new found Tropes with problemes old:Or with strange similies enrich each line,Of hearbes or beastes, which Inde or Afrike hold

Astrophel and Stella: 1

© Sir Philip Sidney

Loving in truth, and faine in verse my loue to show,That she (deare she) might take some pleasure of my paine:Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know,Knowledge might pittie winne, and pittie grace obtaine,I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertaine:Oft turning others leaues, to see if thence would flowSome fresh and fruitfull showers vpon my sunne-burn'd braine

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Who is it that says most, which can say more

© William Shakespeare

Who is it that says most, which can say moreThan this rich praise, that you alone are you,In whose confine immurèd is the storeWhich should example where your equal grew?Lean penury within that pen doth dwellThat to his subject lends not some small glory,But he that writes of you, if he can tellThat you are you, so dignifies his story

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spendUpon thy self thy beauty's legacy?Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,And being frank she lends to those are free:Then beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuseThe bounteous largess giv'n thee to give?Profitless usurer, why dost thou useSo great a sum of sums yet can'st not live?For having traffic with thy self alone,Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive;Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,What acceptable audit can'st thou leave? Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee, Which usèd lives th' executor to be

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brainFull character'd with lasting memoryWhich shall above that idle rank remainBeyond all date, ev'n to eternity

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Thus is his cheek the map of days out-worn

Thus is his cheek the map of days out-wornWhen beauty liv'd and died as flow'rs do now,Before these bastard signs of fair were borneOr durst inhabit on a living brow:Before the golden tresses of the dead,The right of sepulchers, were shorn away,To live a second life on second head,Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay

Shakespeare's Sonnets: They that have pow'r to hurt and will do none

They that have pow'r to hurt and will do none,That do not do the thing they most do show,Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow,They rightly do inherit heav'n's gracesAnd husband nature's riches from expense,They are the lords and own'rs of their faces,Others but stewards of their excellence

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

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 dim'd,And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course, untrim'd:But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,Nor shall death brag thou wandr'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

Shakespeare's Sonnets: O, for my sake do you with fortune chide

O, for my sake do you with fortune chide,The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,That did not better for my life provideThan public means which public manners breeds

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