Renaissance Poetry

Duncan Wu is a Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in English Literature.

• Series Editor's Preface. Introduction.Acknowledgements.1. Edmund Spenser (?1552-99):.Epithalamion.Prothalamion.From The Faerie Queene.1. The bower of Bliss (II. xii.).2. The garden of Adonis (III. vi.).3. Mutability claims to rule the world (VII. vii.).2. Sir Walter Ralegh (?1552-1618):.The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd.3. Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628):.From Caelica.Sonnet 69 (‘When all this All doth pass from age to age').Sonnet 86 (‘The earth with thunder torn, with fire blasted').Sonnet 99 (‘Down in the depth of mine iniquity').Sonnet 100 (‘In night when colours all to black are cast').4. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86):.From Certain Sonnets.Sonnet 31 (‘Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare').Sonnet 32 (‘Leave me, O love which reachest but to dust').From Astrophil and Stella.Sonnet 1 (‘Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show').Sonnet 27 (‘Because I oft, in dark abstracted guise').Sonnet 31 (‘With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!').Sonnet 34 (‘Come, let me write. And to what end? To ease').Sonnet 39 (‘Come sleep! O sleep, the certain knot of peace').Sonnet 45 (‘Stella oft sees the very face of woe').Sonnet 54 (‘Because I breathe not love to every one').Sonnet 94 (‘Grief find the words, for thou hast made my brain').5. Michael Drayton (1563-1631):.From Idea.Sonnet 6 (‘How many paltry, foolish, painted things').Sonnet 13 (‘You're not alone when you are still alone').6. Christopher Marlowe (1564-93):.The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.7. William Shakespeare (1564-1616):.From Sonnets.Sonnet 1 (‘From fairest creatures we desire increase').Sonnet 2 (‘When forty winters shall besiege thy brow').Sonnet 12 (‘When I do count the clock that tells the time').Sonnet 18 (‘Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?').Sonnet 29 (‘When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes').Sonnet 30 (‘When to the sessions of sweet silent thought').Sonnet 55 (‘Not marble, not the gilded monuments').Sonnet 60 (‘Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore').Sonnet 64 (‘When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced').Sonnet 71 (‘No longer mourn for me when I am dead').Sonnet 73 (‘That time of year thou mayst in me behold').Sonnet 90 (‘Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now').Sonnet 91 (‘Some glory in their birth, some in their skill').Sonnet 94 (‘They that have power to hurt and will do none').Sonnet 96 (‘Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness').Sonnet 110 (‘Alas,tis true, I have gone here and there').Sonnet 115 (‘Those lines that I before have writ, do lie').Sonnet 116 (‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds').Sonnet 121 (‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed').Sonnet 129 (‘The expense of spirit in a waste of shame').Sonnet 130 (‘My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun').Sonnet 138 (‘When my love swears that she is made of truth').Sonnet 139 (‘O call me not to justify the wrong').Sonnet 140 (‘Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press').Sonnet 141 (‘In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes').Sonnet 147 (‘My love is as a fever, longing still').Sonnet 148 (‘Oh me! What eyes hath Love put in my head').8. Thomas Campion (1567-1620):.Cherry-Ripe (‘There is a garden in her face').9. John Donne (1572-1631):.Love's Deity.Song (‘Go and catch a falling star').Woman's Constancy.The Flea.The Bait.The Will.The Sun Rising.The Computation.A Lecture upon the Shadow.Love's Alchemy.The Ecstasy.The Good-Morrow.Air and Angels.The Prohibition.Love's Infiniteness.Love's Growth.The Anniversary.The Canonization.A Valediction: Of Weeping.A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.The Funeral.The Relic.Twicknam Garden.A Nocturnal upon St Lucy's Day, being the Shortest Day.To his Mistress Going to Bed.From Holy Sonnett.Sonnet 6 (‘Death be not proud, though some have called thee').Sonnet 10 (‘Batter my heart, three-personed God, for thee').Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward.A Hymn to God the Father.Hymn to God, my God, in my Sickness.10. Ben Jonson (?1573-1637):.From Epigrams.On Court-Worm.On my First Daughter.On my First Son.On Gut.From The Forest.To Penshurst.To Sir Robert Wroth.Song. To Celia (‘Drink to me only with thine eyes').Epistle. To Katharine, Lady Aubigny.From Underwoods.A Celebration of Charis in ten lyric pieces (extract).Her Triumph.My Picture, left in Scotland.An Epitaph on Master Vincent Corbet.To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison.An Elegy. On the Lady Jane Pawlet, Marchioness of Winton.From Cynthia's Revels.Slow, slow, fresh fount.11. Robert Herrick (1591-1674):.From Hesperides.The Argument of his Book (‘I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers').When he would have his Verses Read.Delight in Disorder.To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.Upon Julia's Clothes.The Funeral Rites of the Rose.To Daisies, not to shut so soon.Cherry-Ripe.His Cavalier.The Difference betwixt Kings and Subjects.Kings and Tyrants.Slavery.Ill Government.His Return to London.12. Henry King (1592-1669):.The Exequy.13. George Herbert (1593-1633):.From The Temple.The Pulley.Church Monuments.Redemption.Nature.Prayer.The Pilgrimage.Artillery.The Collar.The Flower.Love.14. John Milton (1608-74):.L'Allegro.Il Penseroso.Lycidas.On the Lord General Fairfax at the Siege of Colchester.To the Lord General Cromwell.To Sir Henry Vane the Younger.On the Late Massacre in Piedmont.On his Blindness.To Cyriack Skinner.To the Same.On his Deceased Wife.15. Andrew Marvell (1621-78):.The Garden.On a Drop of Dew.The Mower against Gardens.The Coronet.A Dialogue between the Soul and Body.Bermudas.The Nymph complaining for the Death of her Fawn.The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers.To his Coy Mistress.An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland.16. Henry Vaughan (1621-95):.From Silex Scintillans.The Seed growing Secretly.The Night.The Morning Watch.Regeneration.The Retreat.Silence, and stealth of days!.The World.I walked the other day (to spend my hour).They are all gone into the world of light!.17. Thomas Traherne (1637-74):.Eden.Innocence.My Spirit.Index of titles and first lines.