Sonnet 16William Shakespeare

But wherefore do not you a mightier wayMake war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?And fortify your self in your decayWith means more blessed than my barren rhyme?Now stand on you the top of my happy hours,And many maiden gardens, yet unset,With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,Much liker than your painted counterfeit:So should the lines of life that life repair,Which this, Times pencil, or my pupil pen,Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,Can make you live your self in eyes of men.To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare three to a summers day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summers lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often his gold complexion dimmed,And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or natures changing course untrimmed:But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair owst,Nor shall death brag thou wanderst his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growst,So long as men could breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The Passionate Shepherd to His LoveChristopher Marlowe

Come live with me and be my love,And we will all the pleasures proveThat valleys, groves, hills and fieldsWoods or steepy mountain yields

And we will sit upon the rocks,Seeing the shepherds feed their flocksBy shallow rivers to whose dallsMelodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of rosesAnd a thousand fragrant posies,A cap of flower, and a kirtleEmbroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest woolWhich from our pretty lambs we pull;Fair lined slippers for the coldWith buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,With coral clasps and amber studs; And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love.The shepherds swains shall dance and singFor thy delight each May morning:If these delights thy mind may move,Then live with me and be my love.

The Nymphs Reply to the ShepherdSir Walter Raleigh

If all the world and love were young,And truth in every shepherds tongueThese pretty pleasures might me moveTo live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;And Philomel becometh dumb;The rest complain of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fieldsTo wayward winter and reckoning yields;A honey tongue, a heart of gall,Is fancys spring, but sorrows fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses,Thy cap, thy kirtle, and they posies,Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,Thy coral clasps and amber studs,All these in me no means can moveTo come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,Had no joys no date nor age nor need,Then these delights my mind might moveTo live with thee and be thy love.