127In the old age black was not counted fair,Or if it were it bore not beauty's name;But now is black beauty's successive heir,And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,Fairing...

99The forward violet thus did I chide:'Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,If not from my love's breath? The purple prideWhich on thy soft cheek for complexion dwellsIn my love's veins thou hast too grossly d...

129Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shameIs lust in action, and till action, lustIs perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,Past reason...

97How like a winter hath my absence beenFrom thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!What old December's bareness every where!And yet this time removed was summer's time,The t...

98From you have I been absent in the spring,When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him.Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell...

96Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.As on a finger of a throned queenThe...

128How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,Upon that blessed wood whose motion soundsWith thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'stThe wiry concord that mine ear confounds,Do I envy those jacks that nimble leapTo kiss...

How many bards gild the lapses of time! A few of them have ever been the food Of my delighted fancy, - I could broodOver their beauties, earthly, or sublime:And often, when I sit me down to rhyme, These will in throngs before my min...

Oh Chatterton! how very sad thy fate! Dear child of sorrow! son of misery! How soon the film of death obscur'd that eye,Whence genius wildly flash'd, and high debate!How soon that voice, majestic and elate, Melted in dying murmurs!...

Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so wellWould passion arm me for the enterprize:But ah! I am no knight whose foeman dies; No cuirass gliste...