Characteristics of English poets from Chaucer to Shirley

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Page 279 - Coral is far more red than her lips' red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound...
Page 382 - Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, That would not let me sleep : methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.
Page 281 - Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime ; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
Page 285 - The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutor'd lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours.
Page 277 - As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare ; witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugared sonnets among his private friends, &c.
Page 367 - Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale!— Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood: Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse...
Page 368 - O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention ! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene...

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