Spies, you are lights in state, bu… Who, when you’ve burnt yourselves… Stink and are thrown away. End fa…

ROOM! room! make room for the bo… First father of sauce and deviser… Prime master of arts and the giver… That found out the excellent engin… The plough and the flail, the mill…

The ports of death are sins; of li… Through which our merit leads us t… How wilful blind is he, then, that… And hath it in his powers to make… This world death’s region is, the…

Do but consider this small dust Here running in the glass, By atoms moved; Could you believe that this The body was

O, that joy so soon should waste! Or so sweet a bliss As a kiss Might not for ever last! So sugared, so melting, so soft, s…

Thou art not, Penshurst, built to… Of touch or marble; nor canst boas… Of polished pillars, or a roof of… Thou hast no lantern, whereof tale… Or stair, or courts; but stand’st…

A SONG APOLOGETIC Men, if you love us, play no more The fools or tyrants with your fri… To make us still sing o’er and o’e… Our own false praises, for your en…

Epitaphs i WOULDST thou hear what Man can… In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much Beauty as could die:

The decorously informative church Guide to Sex suggested that any u… could well be controlled by playin… and the game provided also ‘many harmless opportunities for healthy

Here lies, to each her parents’ ru… Mary, the daughter of their youth; Yet all heaven’s gifts being heave… It makes the father less to rue. At six months’ end she parted henc…

Camden, most reverend head, to who…   All that I am in arts, all tha… (How nothing’s that!), to whom my…   The great renown and name where… Than thee the age sees not that th…

Beauties, have ye seen this toy, Called Love, a little boy, Almost naked, wanton, blind; Cruel now, and then as kind? If he be amongst ye, say?

Still to be neat, still to be dres… As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder’d, still perfum… Lady, it is to be presum’d, Though art’s hid causes are not fo…

Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years, I have had, and have, my peers; Poets, though divine, are men,

Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die; Which in life did harbour give