Sonnet XXV: O Why Should Nature

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1. Sonnet XVIII: To This Our World To the Celestial Numbers To this our world, to Learning, and to Heav’n, Three Nines there are, to every one a Nine, One number of the Earth, the other both divine; One woman now makes three odd numbers ev’n. Nine Orders first of Angels be in Heav’n, Nine Muses do with Learning still frequent: These […]...
2. Sonnet 38: How can my Muse want subject to invent How can my Muse want subject to invent While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For every vulgar paper to rehearse? O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight, For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee, When thou […]...
3. Sonnet LXXIX Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace, But now my gracious numbers are decay’d And my sick Muse doth give another place. I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument Deserves the travail of a worthier pen, Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent He robs […]...
4. Sonnet 79: Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace, But now my gracious numbers are decayed, And my sick Muse doth give an other place. I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument Deserves the travail of a worthier pen, Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent He […]...
5. Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument all bare is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside. O, blame me not if I no more can write! Look in your glass, and there appears a face That overgoes my blunt […]...
6. Sonnet C Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song, Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light? Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem In gentle numbers time so idly spent; Sing to the ear that doth thy […]...
7. Sonnet LXXVIII So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse And found such fair assistance in my verse As every alien pen hath got my use And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing And heavy ignorance aloft to fly Have added feathers to the learned’s wing And […]...
8. Sonnet 78: So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse, And found such fair assistance in my verse As every alien pen hath got my use, And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing, And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Have added feathers to the learnèd’s wing And […]...
9. Sonnet 100: Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song, Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light? Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem In gentle numbers time so idly spent; Sing to the ear that doth thy […]...
10. Sonnet XLIII: The Unhappy Exile The unhappy exile, whom his fates confine To the bleak coast of some unfriendly isle, Cold, barren, desart, where no harvests smile, But thirst and hunger on the rocks repine; When, from some promontory’s fearful brow, Sun after sun he hopeless sees decline In the broad shipless sea-perhaps may know Such heartless pain, such blank […]...
11. 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: But finding not those restless flames in me, Which others said did make their souls to pine, I thought those babes of […]...
12. Sonnet VII: When Nature When Nature made her chief work, Stella’s eyes, In color black why wrapp’d 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 those […]...
13. Noah's Flood (excerpts) Eternal and all-working God, which wast Before the world, whose frame by Thee was cast, And beautified with beamful lamps above, By thy great wisdom set how they should move To guide the seasons, equally to all, Which come and go as they do rise and fall. My mighty Maker, O do thou infuse Such […]...
14. Sonnet 13 XIII To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Aires. Harry whose tuneful and well measur’d Song First taught our English Musick how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas Ears, committing short and long; Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look […]...
15. Exiles Her brown falcon perches above the sink As steaming water forks over my hands. Below the wrists they shrivel and turn pink. I am in exile in my own land. Her half-grown cats scuffle across the floor Trailing a slime of blood from where they fed. I lock the door. They claw under the door. […]...
16. Sonnet 20: A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, […]...
17. Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving To Miracle Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say, that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove. See miracles, ye unbelieving, see A dumb-born Muse made t’express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One […]...
18. Sonnet XVII Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fill’d with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
19. Sonnet XLII: Some Men There Be Some men there be which like my method well And much commend the strangeness of my vein; Some say I have a passing pleasing strain; Some say that im my humor I excel; Some, who not kindly relish my conceit, They say, as poets do, I use to feign, And in bare words paint out […]...
20. Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts: If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
21. Sonnet XXXIX: Some, When in Rhyme Some, when in rhyme they of their loves do tell, With flames and lightnings their exordiums paint; Some call on Heav’n, some invocate on Hell, And Fates and Furies with their woes acquaint. Elysium is too high a seat for me; I will not come in Styx or Phlegethon; The thrice-three Muses but too wanton […]...
22. To His Honoured and Most Ingenious Friend Mr. Charles Cotton For brave comportment, wit without offence, Words fully flowing, yet of influence: Thou art that man of men, the man alone, Worthy the public admiration: Who with thine own eyes read’st what we do write, And giv’st our numbers euphony, and weight. Tell’st when a verse springs high, how understood To be, or not born […]...
23. Love, the Soul of Poetry WHen first Alexis did in Verse delight, His Muse in Low, but Graceful Numbers walk’t, And now and then a little Proudly stalk’t; But never aim’d at any noble Flight: The Herds, the Groves, the gentle purling Streams, Adorn’d his Song, and were his highest Theams. But Love these Thoughts, like Mists, did soon disperse, […]...
24. Sonnet XXXII The paynefull smith with force of feruent heat, The hardest yron soone doth mollify: That with his heauy sledge he can it beat, And fashion to what he it list apply. Yet cannot all these flames in which I fry, Her hart more harde then yron soft awhit; Ne all the playnts and prayers with […]...
25. Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that muse So is it not with me as with that muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven it self for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, Making a couplement of proud compare With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, With April’s first-born flowers, and […]...
26. Sonnet XXI So is it not with me as with that Muse Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse Making a couplement of proud compare, With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, With April’s first-born flowers, and all […]...
27. Sonnet – To Zante Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers, Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take! How many memories of what radiant hours At sight of thee and thine at once awake! How many scenes of what departed bliss! How many thoughts of what entombed hopes! How many visions of a maiden that is […]...
28. Sonnet IV: Why, When I Gaze Why, when I gaze on Phaon’s beauteous eyes, Why does each thought in wild disorder stray? Why does each fainting faculty decay, And my chill’d breast in throbbing tumults rise? Mute, on the ground my Lyre neglected lies, The Muse forgot, and lost the melting lay; My down-cast looks, my faultering lips betray, That stung […]...
29. In Praise of Meter The earth is full of rhythms so precise The octave of the crystal can produce A trillion oscillations, yet not lose A second’s beat. The ear needs no device To hear the unsprung rhythms of the couch Drown out the mouth’s; the lips can be debauched By kisses, should the heart put back its watch […]...
30. Sonnet to Amicus WHOE’ER thou art, whose soul-enchanting song Steals on the sullen ear of pensive woe; To whom the sounds of melody belong, Sounds, that can more than human bliss bestow; Like the wak’d God of day, whose rays pervade The spangled veil of night, and fling their fires O’er the cold bosom of the em’rald glade, […]...
31. Nature Study (for Rona, Jeremy, Sam & Grace) All the lizards are asleep Perched pagodas with tiny triangular tiles, Each milky lid a steamed-up window. Inside, the heart repeats itself like a sleepy gong, Summoning nothing to nothing. In winter time, the zoo reverts to metaphor, God’s poetry of boredom: The cobra knits her Fair-Isle skin, Rattlers […]...
32. The Triple Fool I am two fools, I know – For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry; But where’s that wiseman that would not be I, If she would not deny? Then, as th’ earths inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea waters fretful salt away, I thought, if I could draw my pains Through rhymes […]...
33. Farewell FAREWELL, and when forth I through the Golden Gates to Golden Isles Steer without smiling, through the sea of smiles, Isle upon isle, in the seas of the south, Isle upon island, sea upon sea, Why should I sail, why should the breeze? I have been young, and I have counted friends. A hopeless sail […]...
34. Sonnet CI O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say ‘Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix’d; Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay; But […]...
35. Sonnet to William Wilberforce, Esq Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain, Hears thee, by cruel men and impious, call’d Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose th’ enthrall’d From exile, public sale, and slav’ry’s chain. Friend of the poor, the wrong’d, the fetter-gall’d, Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain! Thou hast achiev’d a part; hast gain’d the ear […]...
36. Patience Taught By Nature ‘O DREARY life,’ we cry, ‘ O dreary life! ‘ And still the generations of the birds Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds Serenely live while we are keeping strife With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife Against which we may struggle! Ocean girds Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards Unweary […]...
37. Sonnet 101: O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse. Wilt thou not haply say, “Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed, Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay, But […]...
38. EVER AND EVERYWHERE FAR explore the mountain hollow, High in air the clouds then follow! To each brook and vale the Muse Thousand times her call renews. Soon as a flow’ret blooms in spring, It wakens many a strain; And when Time spreads his fleeting wing, The seasons come again. 1820.*...
39. Sonnet I: Loving In Truth 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 […]...
40. Sonnet LXXXVI Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? No, neither […]...