“TIS the year's midnight, and it is the day's,Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ; The sun is spent, and now his flasks Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ; The world's whole sap is sunk ;The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,Compared with me, who am their epitaph.”

“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. ”

“Only our love hath no decay; This no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday, Running it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.”

“Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to aery thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two ; Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do. And though it in the centre 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 th' other foot, obliquely run ; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.”

“Changed loves are but changed sorts of meat,And when he hath the kernel eat,Who doth not fling away the shell?”

“I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry;But where's that wiseman, that would not be I, If she would not deny?Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,I thought, if I could draw my pains Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,For he tames it, that fetters it in verse. But when I have done so, Some man, his art and voice to show, Doth set and sing my pain;And, by delighting many, frees again Grief, which verse did restrain.To love and grief tribute of verse belongs, But not of such as pleases when 'tis read.Both are increased by such songs, For both their triumphs so are published,And I, which was two fools, do so grow three;Who are a little wise, the best fools be.”

“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 reignLove was as subtly catched, as a disease; But being got it is a treasure sweet, Which to defend is harder than to get: And ought not be profaned on either part, For though 'tis got by chance,'tis kept by art”