Love

Foolish love is only folly;
Wanton love is too unholy;
Greedy love is covetous;
Idle love is frivolous;
But the gracious love is it
That doth prove the work of it.

Beauty but deceives the eye;
Flattery leads the ear awry;
Wealth doth but enchant the wit;
Want, the overthrow of it;
While in Wisdom's worthy grace,
Virtue sees the sweetest face.

There hath Love found out his life,
Peace without all thought of strife;
Kindness in Discretion's care;
Truth, that clearly doth declare
Faith doth in true fancy prove,
Lust the excrements of Love.

Then in faith may fancy see
How my love may constru'd be;
How it grows and what it seeks;
How it lives and what it likes;
So in highest grace regard it,
Or in lowest scorn discard it.

Nicholas Breton

Nicholas Breton was an English poet and novelist. He became notable in his time for his wide range of works, from pastoral poetry to satire. Over the years, Breton developed a distinctive style marked by its versatility and lyrical beauty. Some of his more famous works include 'The Pilgrimage to Paradise' and 'A Floorish Upon Fancie.' His contribution to the literary landscape of his era remains impactful.

Nicholas Breton

Astrophel's Song of Phyllida and Corydon

Nicholas Breton, Simple Poetry

The Passionate Shepherd.

Nicholas Breton, Simple Poetry

Aglaia: a Pastoral

Nicholas Breton, Simple Poetry

English

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Love And Folly. - From La Fontaine. (Translations.)

Love's worshippers alone can know
The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
His blooming age are mysteries.
A charming science, but the day
Were all too short to con it o'er;
So take of me this little lay,
A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played,
A quarrel rose betwixt the pair.
Love said the gods should do him right,
But Folly vowed to do it then,
And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight,
So hard he never saw again.

His lovely mother's grief was deep,
She called for vengeance on the deed;
A beauty does not vainly weep,
Nor coldly does a mother plead.
A shade came o'er the eternal bliss
That ...

William Cullen Bryant

A Quarrel with Love

Oh that I could write a story
    Of love's dealing with affection!
How he makes the spirit sorry
    That is touch'd with his infection.

But he doth so closely wind him,
    In the plaits of will ill-pleased,
That the heart can never find him
    Till it be too much diseased.

'Tis a subtle kind or spirit
    Of a venom-kind of nature,
That can, like a coney-ferret,
    Creep unawares upon a creature.

Never eye that can behold it,
    Though it worketh first by seeing;
Nor conceit that can unfold it,
    Though in thoughts be all its being.

Oh! it maketh old men witty,
    Young men wanton, women idle,
While that patience weeps, for pity
    Reason bite not nature's bridle.

What it is, in conjecture;
    S...

Nicholas Breton

Love.

Love!--what is love? a mere machine, a spring
For freaks fantastic, a convenient thing,
A point to which each scribbling wight most steer,
Or vainly hope for food or favour here;
A summer's sigh; a winter's wistful tale:
A sound at which th' untutor'd maid turns pale;
Her soft eyes languish, and her bosom heaves,
And Hope delights as Fancy's dream deceives.

Thus speaks the heart which cold disgust invades,
When time instructs, and Hope's enchantment fades;
Through life's wide stage, from sages down to kings,
The puppets move, as art directs the strings:
Imperious beauty bows to sordid gold,
Her smiles, whence heaven flows emanent, are sold;
And affectation swells th' entrancing tones,
Which nature subjugates, and truth disowns.

I love th' ingenuous...

Thomas Gent

Epode

Not to know vice at all, and keepe true state,
Is vertue, and not Fate:
Next, to that vertue, is to know vice well,
And her black spight expell.
Which to effect (since no brest is so sure,
Or safe, but shee'll procure
Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard
Of thoughts to watch, and ward
At th'eye and eare (the ports unto the minde)
That no strange, or unkinde
Object arrive there, but the heart (our spie)
Give knowledge instantly,
To wakefull Reason, our affections king:
Who (in th'examining)
Will quickly taste the reason, and commit
Close, the close cause of it.
'Tis the securest policie we have,
To make our sense our slave.
But this true course is not embrac'd by many:
By many? scarce by any.
For either our affections doe rebell,

Ben Jonson

Love And Folly.

^[1]

Love bears a world of mystery -
His arrows, quiver, torch, and infancy:
'Tis not a trifling work to sound
A sea of science so profound:
And, hence, t' explain it all to-day
Is not my aim; but, in my simple way,
To show how that blind archer lad
(And he a god!) came by the loss of sight,
And eke what consequence the evil had,
Or good, perhaps, if named aright -
A point I leave the lover to decide,
As fittest judge, who hath the matter tried.
Together on a certain day,
Said Love and Folly were at play:
The former yet enjoy'd his eyes.
Dispute arose. Love thought it wise
Before the council of the gods to go,
Where both of them by birth held stations;
But Folly, in her lack of patience,
Dealt on his forehead such a blow

Jean de La Fontaine

Love and Reason

When panting sighs the bosom fill,
And hands by chance united thrill
At once with one delicious pain
The pulses and the nerves of twain;
When eyes that erst could meet with ease,
Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun
Extatic conscious unison,
The sure beginnings, say, be these
Prelusive to the strain of love
Which angels sing in heaven above?

Or is it but the vulgar tune,
Which all that breathe beneath the moon
So accurately learn so soon?
With variations duly blent;
Yet that same song to all intent,
Set for the finer instrument;
It is; and it would sound the same
In beasts, were not the bestial frame,
Less subtly organised, to blame;
And but that soul and spirit add
To pleasures, even base and bad,
A zest the soulless never had.

Arthur Hugh Clough