severo/love-poems huggingface dataset:
Fayre is my love, when her fayre golden heares,
With the loose wynd ye waving chance to marke:
Fayre when the rose in her red cheekes appears,
Or in her eyes the fyre of love does sparke.
Fayre when her brest lyke a rich laden barke,
With pretious merchandize she forth doth lay:
Fayre when that cloud of pryde which oft doth dark
Her goodly light with smiles she drives away,
But fayrest she, when so she doth display
The gate with pearles and rubyes richly dight:
Throgh which her words so wise do make their way
To beare the message of her gentle spright.
The rest be works of natures wonderment,
But this the worke of harts astonishment.
Lyke as the Culver on the bared bough,
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate:
And in her songs sends many a wishfull vow,
For his returne that seemes to linger late,
So I alone now left disconsolate,
Mourne to my selfe the absence of my love:
And wandring here and there all desolate,
Seek with my playnts to match that mournful dove:
Ne joy of ought that under heaven doth hove,
Can comfort me, but her owne joyous sight:
Whose sweet aspect both God and man can move,
In her unspotted pleasauns to delight.
Dark is my day, whyles her fayre light I mis,
And dead my life that wants such lively blis.
More then most faire, full of the living fire,
Kindled above unto the maker neere:
No eies but joyes, in which al powers conspire,
That to the world naught else be counted deare.
Thrugh your bright beams doth not the blinded guest
Shoot out his darts to base affections wound?
But Angels come to lead fraile mindes to rest
In chast desires on heavenly beauty bound.
You frame my thoughts and fashion me within,
You stop my toung, and teach my hart to speake,
You calme the storme that passion did begin,
Strong thrugh your cause, but by your vertue weak.
Dark is the world, where your light shined never;
Well is he borne, that may behold you ever.
In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth,
Whiles her faire face she reares up to the skie:
And to the ground her eie lids low embaseth
Most goodly temperature ye may descry,
Myld humblesse mixt with awfull majesty,
For looking on the earth whence she was borne:
Her minde remembreth her mortalitie,
What so is fayrest shall to earth returne.
But that same lofty countenance seemes to scorne
Base thing, and thinke how she to heaven may clime:
Treading downe earth as lothsome and forlorne,
That hinders heavenly thoughts with drossy slime.
Yet lowly still vouchsafe to looke on me,
Such lowlinesse shall make you lofty be.
Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle,
Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain:
And both the Indias of their treasures spoile,
What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?
For loe my love doth in her selfe containe
All this worlds riches that may farre be found,
If Saphyres, loe hir eies be Saphyres plaine,
If Rubies, loe hir lips be Rubies sound:
If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles both pure and round;
If Yvorie, her forhead yvory weene;
If Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;
If silver, her faire hands are silver sheene;
But that which fairest is, but few behold,
Her mind adornd with vertues manifold.
Penelope for her Ulisses sake,
Devizd a Web her wooers to deceave:
In which the worke that she all day did make
The same at night she did again unreave:
Such subtile craft my Damzell doth conceave,
Th importune suit of my desire to shnone:
For all that I in many dayes doo weave,
In one short houre I find by her undonne.
So when I thinke to end that I begonne,
I must begin and never bring to end:
For with one looke she spils that long I sponne,
And with one word my whole years work doth rend.
Such labour like the Spyders web I fynd,
Whose fruitless worke is broken with least wynd.
My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeald with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.
Though beauty be the mark of praise,
   And yours of whom I sing be such
   As not the world can praise too much,
Yet tis your virtue now I raise.

A virtue, like allay, so gone
   Throughout your form, as, though that move
   And draw and conquer all mens love,
This subjects you to love of one.

Wherein you triumph yet; because
   Tis of yourself, and that you use
   The noblest freedom, not to choose
Against or faith or honors laws.

But who should less expect from you,
   In whom alone Love lives again?
   By whom he is restored to men,
And kept, and bred, and brought up true.

His falling temples you have reared,
   The withered garlands taen away;
   His altars kept from the decay
That envy wished, and nature feared;

And on them burn so chaste a flame,
   With so much loyalties expense,
   As Love, t acquit such excellence,
Is gone himself into your name.

And you are he; the deity
   To whom all lovers are designed
   That would their better objects find;
Among which faithful troop am I.

Who, as an offspring at your shrine,
   Have sung this hymn, and here entreat
   One spark of your diviner heat
To light upon a love of mine.

Which, if it kindle not, but scant
   Appear, and that to shortest view,
   Yet give me leave t adore in you
What I in her am grieved to want.
And if I did, what then?
Are you aggrievd therefore?
The sea hath fish for every man,
And what would you have more?

   Thus did my mistress once,
Amaze my mind with doubt;
And poppd a question for the nonce
To beat my brains about.

   Whereto I thus replied:
Each fisherman can wish
That all the seas at every tide
Were his alone to fish.

   And so did I (in vain)
But since it may not be,
Let such fish there as find the gain,
And leave the loss for me.

   And with such luck and loss
I will content myself,
Till tides of turning time may toss
Such fishers on the shelf.

   And when they stick on sands,
That every man may see,
Then will I laugh and clap my hands,
As they do now at me.
All Kings, and all their favourites,
         All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
    The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass,
    Is elder by a year now than it was
    When thou and I first one another saw:
    All other things to their destruction draw,
         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.

         Two graves must hide thine and my corse;
         If one might, death were no divorce.
    Alas, as well as other Princes, we
    (Who Prince enough in one another be)
    Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,
    Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears;
         But souls where nothing dwells but love
    (All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove
    This, or a love increased there above,
When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

         And then we shall be throughly blessed;
         But we no more than all the rest.
    Here upon earth were Kings, and none but we
    Can be such Kings, nor of such subjects be;
    Who is so safe as we? where none can do
    Treason to us, except one of us two.
         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.
As you came from the holy land
Of Walsingham,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?

How shall I know your true love,
That have met many one,
I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone?

She is neither white, nor brown,
But as the heavens fair;
There is none hath a form so divine
In the earth, or the air.

Such a one did I meet, good sir,
Such an angelic face,
Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear
By her gait, by her grace.

She hath left me here all alone,
All alone, as unknown,
Who sometimes did me lead with herself,
And me loved as her own.

Whats the cause that she leaves you alone,
And a new way doth take,
Who loved you once as her own,
And her joy did you make?

I have lovd her all my youth;
But now old, as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit
From the withered tree.

Know that Love is a careless child,
And forgets promise past;
He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
And in faith never fast.

His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy:
He is won with a world of despair,
And is lost with a toy.

Of womenkind such indeed is the love,
Or the word love abusd,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excusd.

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.
Stella is sick, and in that sick-bed lies
Sweetness, that breathes and pants as oft as she;
And grace, sick too, such fine conclusions tries
That sickness brags itself best graced to be.
    Beauty is sick, but sick in so fair guise
That in that paleness beautys white we see;
And joy, which is inseparate from these eyes,
Stella now learns (strange case!) to weep in thee.
   Love moves thy pain, and like a faithful page,
As thy looks stir, runs up and down, to make
All folks prest at thy will thy pain to assuage;
Nature with care sweats for her darlings sake,
   Knowing worlds pass, ere she enough can find
   Of such heaven stuff, to clothe so heavenly mind.
Where be the roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes?
    Where those red cheeks, which oft with fair increase did frame
    The height of honor in the kindly badge of shame?
Who hath the crimson weeds stolen from my morning skies?
How doth the color vade of those vermilion dyes,
    Which Nature's self did make, and self engrained the same!
    I would know by what right this paleness overcame
That hue, whose force my heart still unto thraldom ties?
    Galen's adoptive sons, who by a beaten way
    Their judgements hackney on, the fault on sickness lay;
But feeling proof makes me say they mistake it far:
    It is but love, which makes his paper perfect white
    To write therein more fresh the story of delight,
Whiles beauty's reddest ink Venus for him doth stir.
O absent presence, Stella is not here;
    False flattering hope, that with so fair a face
    Bare me in hand, that in this orphan place
Stella, I say my Stella, should appear.
What sayst thou now? Where is that dainty cheer
    Thou toldst mine eyes should help their famished case?
    But thou art gone, now that self-felt disgrace
Doth make me most to wish thy comfort near.
    But here I do store of fair ladies meet,
    Who may with charm of conversation sweet
Make in my heavy mould new thoughts to grow:
    Sure they prevail as much with me, as he
    That bade his friend, but then new maimed, to be
Merry with him, and not think of his woe.
Stella, since thou so right a princess art
Of all the powers which life bestows on me,
There ere by them aught undertaken be
They first resort unto that sovereign part;
Sweet, for a while give respite to my heart,
Which pants as though it still should leap to thee,
And on my thoughts give thy lieutenancy
To this great cause, which needs both use and art,
And as a queen, who from her presence sends
Whom she employs, dismiss from thee my wit,
Till it have wrought what thy own will attends.
On servants shame oft masters blame doth sit.
Oh let not fools in me thy works reprove,
And scorning say, See what it is to love.
Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend,
Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire
Than did on him who first stale down the fire,
While Love on me doth all his quiver spend,
But with your rhubarb words you must contend
To grieve me worse, in saying that Desire
Doth plunge my well-formed soul even in the mire
Of sinful thoughts, which do in ruin end?
If that be sin which doth the manners frame,
Well stayed with truth in word and faith of deed,
Ready of wit, and fearing naught but shame;
If that be sin which in fixed hearts doth breed
A loathing of all loose unchastity,
Then love is sin, and let me sinful be.
Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot,
   Love gave the wound which while I breathe will bleed:
   But known worth did in mine of time proceed,
Till by degrees it had full conquest got.
I saw, and liked; I liked, but loved not;
   I loved, but straight did not what love decreed:
   At length to loves decrees I, forced, agreed,
Yet with repining at so partial lot.
   Now even that footstep of lost liberty
Is gone, and now like slave-born Muscovite
I call it praise to suffer tyranny;
And now employ the remnant of my wit
   To make myself believe that all is well,
   While with a feeling skill I paint my hell.
Your words my friend (right healthful caustics) blame
My young mind marred, whom Love doth windlass so,
That mine own writings like bad servants show
My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame,
That Plato I read for nought, but if he tame
Such coltish gyres, that to my birth I owe
Nobler desires, least else that friendly foe,
Great expectation, wear a train of shame.
For since mad March great promise made of me,
If now the May of my years much decline,
What can be hoped my harvest time will be?
Sure you say well, your wisdoms golden mine
Dig deep with learnings spade, now tell me this,
Hath this world ought so fair as Stella is?
The wisest scholar of the wight most wise
By Phoebus doom, with sugared sentence says
That Virtue, if it once met with our eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise;
But, for that man with pain this truth descries,
While he each thing in senses balance weighs,
And so nor will nor can behold those skies
Which inward sun to heroic mind displays,
Virtue of late, with virtuous care to stir
Love of herself, takes Stellas shape, that she
To mortal eyes might sweetly shine in her.
It is most true, for since I her did see,
Virtues great beauty in that face I prove,
And find theffect, for I do burn in love.
With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbst the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feelst a lovers case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
    Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
    Do they call virtue thereungratefulness?
What, have I thus betrayed my liberty?
Can those black beams such burning marks engrave
In my free side? or am I born a slave,
Whose neck becomes such yoke of tyranny?
Or want I sense to feel my misery?
Or sprite, disdain of such disdain to have?
Who for long faith, though daily help I crave,
May get no alms but scorn of beggary.
Virtue, awake! Beauty but beauty is;
I may, I must, I can, I will, I do
Leave following that which it is gain to miss.
Let her go. Soft, but here she comes. Go to,
Unkind, I love you not! O me, that eye
Doth make my heart give to my tongue the lie!
Souls joy, bend not those morning stars from me,
Where virtue is made strong by beautys might,
Where love is chasteness, pain doth learn delight,
And humbleness grows one with majesty.
Whatever may ensue, O let me be
Co-partner of the riches of that sight;
Let not mine eyes be hell-drivn from that light;
O look, O shine, O let me die and see.
For though I oft my self of them bemoan,
That through my heart their beamy darts be gone,
Whose cureless wounds even now most freshly bleed,
Yet since my death wound is already got,
Dear killer, spare not they sweet cruel shot;
A kind of grace it is to slay with speed.
I on my horse, and Love on me, doth try
Our horsemanships, while by strange work I prove
A horseman to my horse, a horse to Love,
And now mans wrongs in me, poor beast, descry.
The reins wherewith my rider doth me tie
Are humbled thoughts, which bit of reverence move,
Curbed in with fear, but with gilt boss above
Of hope, which makes it seem fair to the eye.
The wand is will; thou, fancy, saddle art,
Girt fast by memory; and while I spur
My horse, he spurs with sharp desire to my heart;
He sits me fast, however I do stir;
And now hath made me to his hand so right
That in the manage myself takes delight.
It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
The inward light; and that the heavenly part
Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
    It is most true, what we call Cupids dart,
An image is, which for ourselves we carve;
And, fools, adore in temple of our heart,
Till that good god make Church and churchman starve.
    True, that true beauty virtue is indeed,
Whereof this beauty can be but a shade,
Which elements with mortal mixture breed;
True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
    And should in soul up to our country move;
True; and yet true, that I must Stella love.
A strife is grown between Virtue and Love,
While each pretends that Stella must be his:
Her eyes, her lips, her all, saith Love, do this,
Since they do wear his badge, most firmly prove.
But Virtue thus that title doth disprove,
That Stella (O dear name) that Stella is
That virtuous soul, sure heir of heavnly bliss;
Not this fair outside, which our hearts doth move.
And therefore, though her beauty and her grace
Be Loves indeed, in Stellas self he may
By no pretense claim any manner place.
Well, Love, since this demur our suit doth stay,
Let Virtue have that Stella's self; yet thus,
Let Virtue but that body grant to us.
O Grammar rules, O now your virtues show;
    So children still read you with awful eyes,
    As my young Dove may in your precepts wise
Her grant to me, by her own virtue know.
For late with heart most high, with eyes most low,
    I cravd the thing which ever she denies:
    She lightning Love, displaying Venus skies,
Least once should not be heard, twice said, No, No.
    Sing then my Muse, now Io Pan sing,
    Heavns envy not at my high triumphing:
But Grammars force with sweet success confirm,
    For Grammar says (O this dear Stella weigh,)
    For Grammar says (to Grammar who says nay)
That in one speech two Negatives affirm.
Desire, though thou my old companion art,
And oft so clings to my pure Love that I
One from the other scarcely can descry,
While each doth blow the fire of my heart,
Now from thy fellowship I needs must part;
Venus is taught with Dians wings to fly;
I must no more in thy sweet passions lie;
Virtues gold now must head my Cupids dart.
Service and honor, wonder with delight,
Fear to offend, will worthy to appear,
Care shining in mine eyes, faith in my sprite:
These things are let me by my only dear;
But thou, Desire, because thou wouldst have all,
Now banished art. But yet alas how shall?
Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame,
Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee;
Thine eyes my pride, thy lips my history;
If thou praise not, all other praise is shame.
Nor so ambitious am I, as to frame
A nest for my young praise in laurel tree:
In truth I sweare, I wish not there should be
Graved in mine epitaph a Poets name:
Nay if I would, could I just title make,
That any laud to me thereof should grow,
Without my plumes from others wings I take.
For nothing from my wit or will doth flow,
Since all my words thy beauty doth endite,
And love doth hold my hand, and makes me write.
O come, soft rest of cares! come, Night!
       Come, naked Virtues only tire,
The reaped harvest of the light
    Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire,
       Love calls to war:
             Sighs his alarms,
       Lips his swords are,
             The fields his arms.

Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand
    On glorious Days outfacing face;
And all thy crowned flames command
    For torches to our nuptial grace.
       Love calls to war:
             Sighs his alarms,
       Lips his swords are,
             The field his arms.
There is a garden in her face
   Where roses and white lilies blow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
   Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:
      There cherries grow which none may buy
      Till Cherry-ripe themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose
   Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
   They look like rose-buds filled with snow;
      Yet them no peer nor prince can buy
      Till Cherry-ripe themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;
   Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill
   All that attempt with eye or hand
      Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
      Till Cherry-ripe themselves do cry.
The time is come, I must depart
   from thee, ah famous city;
I never yet to rue my smart,
   did find that thou hadst pity.
Wherefore small cause there is, that I
   should grieve from thee to go;
But many women foolishly,
   like me, and other moe,
Do such a fixed fancy set,
   on those which least deserve,
That long it is ere wit we get
   away from them to swerve.
But time with pity oft will tell
   to those that will her try,
Whether it best be more to mell,
   or utterly defy.
And now hath time me put in mind
   of thy great cruelness,
That never once a help would find,
   to ease me in distress.
Thou never yet wouldst credit give
   to board me for a year;
Nor with apparel me relieve,
   except thou payed were.
No, no, thou never didst me good,
   nor ever wilt, I know.
Yet am I in no angry mood,
   but will, or ere I go,
In perfect love and charity,
   my testament here write,
And leave to thee such treasury,
   as I in it recite.
Now stand aside and give me leave
      to write my latest will;
And see that none you do deceive
   of that I leave them till.
O happy dames, that may embrace
The fruit of your delight,
Help to bewail the woeful case
And eke the heavy plight
Of me, that wonted to rejoice
The fortune of my pleasant choice;
Good ladies, help to fill my mourning voice.

In ship, freight with remembrance
Of thoughts and pleasures past,
He sails that hath in governance
My life while it will last;
With scalding sighs, for lack of gale,
Furthering his hope, that is his sail,
Toward me, the sweet port of his avail.

Alas! how oft in dreams I see
Those eyes that were my food;
Which sometime so delighted me,
That yet they do me good;
Wherewith I wake with his return,
Whose absent flame did make me burn:
But when I find the lack, Lord, how I mourn!

When other lovers in arms across
Rejoice their chief delight.
Drowned in tears, to mourn my loss
I stand the bitter night
In my window, where I may see
Before the winds how the clouds flee.
Lo! what a mariner love hath made of me!

And in green waves when the salt flood
Doth rise by rage of wind,
A thousand fancies in that mood
Assail my restless mind.
Alas! now drencheth my sweet foe,
That with the spoil of my heart did go,
And left me; but, alas! why did he so?

And when the seas wax calm again
To chase fro me annoy,
My doubtful hope doth cause me pain;
So dread cuts off my joy.
Thus is my wealth mingled with woe,
And of each thought a doubt doth grow;
Now he comes! Will he come? Alas, no, no!