English lyrics from Spenser to Milton, intr. by J. Dennis

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John Dennis
1898

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Page 209 - THE glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things ; There is no armour against Fate ; Death lays his icy hand on kings : Sceptre and Crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Page 100 - Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid ; Fly away, fly away, breath ; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it ! My part of death, no one so true Did share it.
Page 163 - When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme, In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights ; Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as you master now.
Page 141 - This man is freed from servile bands Of hope to rise, or fear to fall ; Lord of himself, though not of lands ; And having nothing, yet hath all.
Page 122 - Enlarged winds that curl the flood Know no such liberty. Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage ; Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage.
Page 97 - When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope...
Page 15 - It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o'er the green corn-field did pass In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding : Sweet lovers love the spring.
Page 12 - With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love.
Page 165 - Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Page 18 - When shepherds pipe on oaten straws And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!

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