“Fool," said my muse to me. "Look in thy heart and write.”

“Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:"Fool!" said my muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.”

“Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,That she (dear she) might take some pleasure of my pain;Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know;Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain;Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flowSome fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain.But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;Invention, nature's child, fled step-dame study's blows;And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,'Fool,' said my muse to me; 'look in thy heart, and write.”

“Stella, the only planet of my light,Light of my life, and life of my desire,Chief good, whereto my hope doth only aspire,World of my wealth, and heav'n of my delight:Why dost thou spend the treasure of thy sprite,With voice more fit to wed Amphion's lyre,Seeking to quench in me the noble fireFed by thy worth, and kindled by thy sight?And all in vain, for while thy breath most sweet,With choicest words, thy words with reasons rare,Thy reasons firmly set on Virtue's feet,Labor to kill in me this killing care:Oh, think I then, what paradise of joyIt is, so fair a Virtue to enjoy.”

“If you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry...thus much curse I must send you, in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour for lacking skill of a sonnet; and, when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph.”

“...music, I say, the most divine striker of the senses...”

“...the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth.”