“We which were Ovids five books, now are three,For these before the rest preferreth he:If reading five thou plainst of tediousnesse,Two tane away, thy labor will be lesse:With Muse upreard I meant to sing of armes,Choosing a subject fit for feirse alarmes:Both verses were alike till Love (men say)Began to smile and tooke one foote away.Rash boy, who gave thee power to change a line?We are the Muses prophets, none of thine.What if thy Mother take Dianas bowe,Shall Dian fanne when love begins to glowe?In wooddie groves ist meete that Ceres Raigne,And quiver bearing Dian till the plaine:Who'le set the faire treste sunne in battell ray,While Mars doth take the Aonian harpe to play?Great are thy kingdomes, over strong and large,Ambitious Imp, why seekst thou further charge?Are all things thine? the Muses Tempe thine?Then scarse can Phoebus say, this harpe is mine.When in this workes first verse I trod aloft,Love slackt my Muse, and made my numbers soft.I have no mistris, nor no favorit,Being fittest matter for a wanton wit,Thus I complaind, but Love unlockt his quiver,Tooke out the shaft, ordaind my hart to shiver:And bent his sinewy bow upon his knee,Saying, Poet heers a worke beseeming thee.Oh woe is me, he never shootes but hits,I burne, love in my idle bosome sits.Let my first verse be sixe, my last five feete,Fare well sterne warre, for blunter Poets meete.Elegian Muse, that warblest amorous laies,Girt my shine browe with sea banke mirtle praise.-- P. Ovidii Nasonis AmorumLiber PrimusELEGIA 1(Quemadmodum a Cupidine, pro bellis amores scribere coactus sit)”

“My father is deceast, come Gaveston,'And share the kingdom with thy deerest friend.'Ah words that make me surfet with delight:What greater blisse can hap to Gaveston,Then live and be the favorit of a king?Sweete prince I come, these these thy amorous lines,Might have enforst me to have swum from France,And like Leander gaspt upon the sande,So thou wouldst smile and take me in thy armes.The sight of London to my exiled eyes,Is as Elizium to a new come soule.Not that I love the citie or the men,But that it harbors him I hold so deare,The king, upon whose bosome let me die,And with the world be still at enmitie:What neede the artick people love star-light,To whom the sunne shines both by day and night.Farewell base stooping to the lordly peeres,My knee shall bowe to none but to the king.As for the multitude that are but sparkes,Rakt up in embers of their povertie,Tanti: Ile fawne first on the winde,That glaunceth at my lips and flieth away: ....”

“Tell me, sweet lord, what is ’t that takes from theeThy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earthAnd start so often when thou sit’st alone?Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeksAnd given my treasures and my rights of theeTo thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?”

“If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thous didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting.”

“Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee Save Me, save only Me?All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms.But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms. All which thy child's mistakeFancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home; Rise, clasp My hand, and come!”

“Live, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow. Juliet! ...O my love! my wife! Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there. Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favor can I do to thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that, I still will stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again: here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chamber-maids...Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace. and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death... Here's to my love!...Thus with a kiss I die.”