The Mistress

Related poetry:

1. To My Inconstant Mistress When thou, poor excommunicate From all the joys of love, shalt see The full reward and glorious fate Which my strong faith shall purchase me, Then curse thine own inconstancy. A fairer hand than thine shall cure That heart which thy false oaths did wound; And to my soul a soul more pure Than thine […]...
2. My Dear Mistress Has a Heart My dear mistress has a heart Soft as those kind looks she gave me, When with love’s resistless art, And her eyes, she did enslave me; But her constancy’s so weak, She’s so wild and apt to wander, That my jealous heart would break Should we live one day asunder. Melting joys about her move, […]...
3. To His Mistress Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye? Without thy light what light remains in me? Thou art my life; my way, my light’s in thee; I live, I move, and by thy beams I see. Thou art my life-if […]...
4. To His Coy Mistress Had we but World enough, and Time, This coyness Lady were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long Loves Day. Thou by the Indian Ganges side. Should’st Rubies find: I by the Tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood: […]...
5. To Mrs. M. A. at Parting I Have examin’d and do find, Of all that favour me There’s none I grieve to leave behind But only only thee. To part with thee I needs must die, Could parting sep’rate thee and I. But neither Chance nor Complement Did element our Love ; ‘Twas sacred Sympathy was lent Us from the Quire […]...
6. Partners Love took chambers on our street Opposite to mine; On his door he tacked a neat, Clearly lettered sign. Straightway grew his custom great, For his sign read so: “Hearts united while you wait. Step in. Love and Co.” Much I wondered who was “Co.” In Love’s partnership; Thought across the street I’d go- Learn […]...
7. Air And Angels Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name, So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, Angels affect us oft, and worship’d be; Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing I did see. But since my soul, whose child love is, Takes limbs […]...
8. Corn Grinders O little mouse, why dost thou cry While merry stars laugh in the sky? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will ease my bitter pain? He went to seek a millet-grain In the rich farmer’s granary shed; They caught him in a baited snare, And slew my lover unaware: Alas! alas! my lord […]...
9. Elegy XVI: On His Mistress By our first strange and fatal interview, By all desires which thereof did ensue, By our long starving hopes, by that remorse Which my words’ masculine persuasive force Begot in thee, and by the memory Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me, I calmly beg: but by thy father’s wrath, By all pains, which […]...
10. My Mistress Commanding Me to Return Her Letters SO grieves th’ adventurous merchant, when he throws All the long toil’d-for treasure his ship stows Into the angry main, to save from wrack Himself and men, as I grieve to give back These letters : yet so powerful is your sway As if you bid me die, I must obey. Go then, blest papers, […]...
11. Bitter-Sweet Ah, my dear angry Lord, Since thou dost love, yet strike; Cast down, yet help afford; Sure I will do the like. I will complain, yet praise; I will bewail, approve; And all my sour-sweet days I will lament and love....
12. The Irish Peasant to his Mistress Through grief and through danger thy smile hath cheer’d my way, Till hope seem’d to bud from each thorn that round me lay; The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burn’d, Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turn’d; Yes, slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free, […]...
13. Agnostic The chapel looms against the sky, Above the vine-clad shelves, And as the peasants pass it by They cross themselves. But I alone, I grieve to state, Lack sentiment divine: A citified sophisticate, I make no sign. Their gesture may a habit be, Mechanic in a sense, Yet somehow it awakes in me Strange reverence. […]...
14. The Ecstasy Where, like a pillow on a bed A pregnant bank swell’d up to rest The violet’s reclining head, Sat we two, one another’s best. Our hands were firmly cemented With a fast balm, which thence did spring; Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread Our eyes upon one double string; So to’intergraft our hands, as yet […]...
15. To His Mistress Objecting To Him Neither Toying Nor Talking You say I love not, ’cause I do not play Still with your curls, and kiss the time away. You blame me, too, because I can’t devise Some sport to please those babies in your eyes;- By love’s religion, I must here confess it, The most I love, when I the least express it. Small […]...
16. Sonnet 129: Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and, till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated as a swallowed bait On purpose laid to […]...
17. Sonnets CXXIX: Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjur’d, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait, On purpose laid to […]...
18. Sonnet CXXIX The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait On purpose laid to […]...
19. Sonnets xix TH’ expense of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait On purpose laid to […]...
20. Withered Grave Forever yours My dearly beloved one Carved in stone, many years ago. Underneath those loving words, a resting body Far too young, left by it’s soul. A few lonely flowers come back every year, But it’s apparent, no living soul is tending here. From the date, by now, forever must also be gone. But where […]...
21. Sonnet CXV Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer: Yet then my judgment knew no reason why My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. But reckoning time, whose million’d accidents Creep in ‘twixt vows and change decrees of kings, Tan sacred beauty, blunt the […]...
22. Sonnet 115: Those lines that I before have writ do lie Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer; Yet then my judgment knew no reason why My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer, But reckoning Time, whose millioned accidents Creep in ‘twixt vows, and change decrees of kings, Tan sacred beauty, blunt the […]...
23. Sonnet 09 – Can it be right to give what I can give? Can it be right to give what I can give? To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years Re-sighing on my lips renunciative Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live For all thy adjurations? O my fears, That this can scarce be right! We […]...
24. Hymn 75 The description of Christ the beloved. SS 5:9-16. The wond’ring world inquires to know Why I should love my Jesus so: What are his charms,” say they, “above The objects of a mortal love?” Yes! my Beloved, to my sight Shows a sweet mixture, red and white: All human beauties, all divine, In my Beloved […]...
25. 206. Song-Clarina, Mistress of my Soul CLARINDA, mistres of my soul, The measur’d time is run! The wretch beneath the dreary pole So marks his latest sun. To what dark cave of frozen night Shall poor Sylvander hie; Depriv’d of thee, his life and light, The sun of all his joy? We part-but by these precious drops, That fill thy lovely […]...
26. Symptoms of Love Love is universal migraine, A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason. Symptoms of true love Are leanness, jealousy, Laggard dawns; Are omens and nightmares – Listening for a knock, Waiting for a sign: For a touch of her fingers In a darkened room, For a searching look. Take courage, lover! Could you endure […]...
27. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130) 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 […]...
28. And you love me And you love me I love you. You are, then, cold coward. Aye; but, beloved, When I strive to come to you, Man’s opinions, a thousand thickets, My interwoven existence, My life, Caught in the stubble of the world Like a tender veil This stays me. No strange move can I make Without noise of […]...
29. Mistress Gurton's Cat Old MISTRESS GURTON had a Cat, A Tabby, loveliest of the race, Sleek as a doe, and tame, and fat With velvet paws, and whisker’d face; The Doves of VENUS not so fair, Nor JUNO’S Peacocks half so grand As MISTRESS GURTON’S Tabby rare, The proudest of the purring band; So dignified in all her […]...
30. For the Bed at Kelmscott The wind’s on the wold And the night is a-cold, And Thames runs chill ‘Twixt mead and hill. But kind and dear Is the old house here And my heart is warm ‘Midst winter’s harm. Rest then and rest, And think of the best ‘Twixt summer and spring, When all birds sing In the town […]...
31. 475. Epigram on a Country Laird (Cardoness) BLESS Jesus Christ, O Cardonessp, With grateful, lifted eyes, Who taught that not the soul alone, But body too shall rise; For had He said “the soul alone From death I will deliver,” Alas, alas! O Cardoness, Then hadst thou lain for ever....
32. THE APPARITION OF HIS, MISTRESS, CALLING HIM TO ELYSIUM THE APPARITION OF HIS, MISTRESS, CALLING HIM TO ELYSIUM DESUNT NONNULLA Come then, and like two doves with silvery wings, Let our souls fly to th’ shades, wherever springs Sit smiling in the meads; where balm and oil, Roses and cassia, crown the untill’d soil; Where no disease reigns, or infection comes To blast the […]...
33. A Divine Mistress In Nature’s pieces still I see Some error that might mended be; Something my wish could still remove, Alter or add; but my fair love Was fram’d by hands far more divine, For she hath every beauteous line: Yet I had been far happier, Had Nature, that made me, made her. Then likeness might (that […]...
34. Song of the Wave XVII The strong shore is my beloved And I am his sweetheart. We are at last united by love, and Then the moon draws me from him. I go to him in haste and depart Reluctantly, with many Little farewells. I steal swiftly from behind the Blue horizon to cast the silver of My foam upon […]...
35. Keepe On Your Maske (Version for his Mistress) Keepe on your maske and hide your eye For in beholding you I dye. Your fatall beauty Gorgon-like Dead with astonishment doth strike. Your piercing eyes that now I see Are worse than Basilisks to me. Shut from mine eyes those hills of snow, Their melting vally do not shew: Those azure paths lead to […]...
36. Mary McNeely Passer-by, To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one. When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul Then you have lost your soul. It is written: “I have a friend, But my sorrow has no friend.” Hence my long years of solitude at the home of my […]...
37. The Lost Mistress All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that today; One day more bursts them open fully -You know the red turns grey. Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? May […]...
38. Thoughts On The Shape Of The Human Body How can we find? how can we rest? how can We, being gods, win joy, or peace, being man? We, the gaunt zanies of a witless Fate, Who love the unloving and lover hate, Forget the moment ere the moment slips, Kiss with blind lips that seek beyond the lips, Who want, and know not […]...
39. O'Donohue's Mistress Of all the fair months, that round the sun In light-link’d dance their circles run, Sweet May, shine thou for me; For still, when thy earliest beams arise, That youth, who beneath the blue lake lies, Sweet May, returns to me. Of all the bright haunts, where daylight leaves Its lingering smile on golden eves, […]...
40. Elegy I: Jealousy Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die, And yet complain’st of his great jealousy; If swol’n with poison, he lay in his last bed, His body with a sere-bark covered, Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can The nimblest crocheting musician, Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew His soul out of one […]...