Samuel Daniel (1562-1619)

"Love is a sickness full of woes,"

Love is a sickness full of woes,
   All remedies refusing;
A plant that with most cutting grows,
   Most barren with best using.
                               Why so?
More we enjoy it, more it dies,
If not enjoyed, it sighing cries,
                               Heigh-ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,
   A tempest everlasting;
And Jove hath made it of a kind
   Not well nor full nor fasting.
                               Why so?
More we enjoy it, more it dies,
If not enjoyed, it sighing cries,
                               Heigh-ho!

"Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew,"

Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew,
Whose short refresh upon the tender green
Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show,
And straight 'tis gone as it had never been.
Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish,
Short is the glory of the blushing rose;
The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish,
Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose.
When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years,
Shall bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth;
And that, in beauty's lease expired, appears
The date of age, the calends of our death --
But ah, no more! -- this must not be foretold,
For women grieve to think they must be old.

"Let others sing of knights and paladins"

Let others sing of knights and paladins
In agéd accents and untimely words,
Paint shadows in imaginary lines,
Which well the reach of their high wit records;
But I must sing of thee, and those fair eyes
Authentic shall my verse in time to come;
When yet th'unborn shall say, Lo, where she lies!
Whose beauty made him speak that else was dumb!
These are the arcs, the trophies I erect,
That fortify thy name against old age;
And these thy sacred virtues must protect
Against the dark and time's consuming rage.
Though th'error of my youth in them appear,
Suffice they show I lived and loved thee dear.