“Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below.”

“At the round earth's imagined corners blowYour trumpets, angels, and arise, ariseFrom death, you numberless infinitiesOf souls, and to your scattered bodies go ;All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyesShall behold God, and never taste death's woe.But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ;For, if above all these my sins abound,'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,Teach me how to repent, for that's as goodAs if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood. ”

“Then love is sin, and let me sinful be.”

“As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go,Whilst some of their sad friends do say, "The breath goes now," and some say, "No,"So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.Moving of the earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant;But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent.Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admitAbsence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.But we, by a love so much refined That our selves know not what it is,Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yetA breach, but an expansion. Like gold to airy thinness beat.If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two:Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do;And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam,It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home.Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like the other foot, obliquely run;Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.”

“True and false fears let us refrain, Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Years and years unto years, till we attain To write threescore: this is the second of our reign.”

“Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right, By these we reach divinity”

“Away thou fondling motley humorist, Leave mee, and in this standing woodden chest, Consorted with these few bookes, let me lye In prison, and here be coffin'd, when I dye; Here are Gods conduits, grave Divines; and here Natures Secretary, the Philosopher; And jolly Statesmen, which teach how to tie The sinewes of a cities mistique bodie; Here gathering Chroniclers, and by them stand Giddie fantastique Poets of each land. Shall I leave all this constant company, And follow headlong, wild uncertaine thee?”