by Paul Keegan
116 ‘Let me not to the marriage of true mindes’
124 ‘Yf my deare love were but the childe of state’
129 ‘Th’expence of Spirit in a waste of shame’
138 ‘When my love sweares that she is made of truth’
144 ‘Two loves I have of comfort and dispaire’
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from Cymbeline ‘Feare no more the heate o’th’Sun’
ANONYMOUS [Inscription in Osmington Church, Dorset]
ANONYMOUS [Inscription in St Mary Magdalene Church, Milk Street, London]
JOHN DAVIES OF HEREFORD The Author Loving These Homely 1610 Meats
from The Authorized Version of the Bible 1611
2 Samuel 1:19–27 David lamenteth the death of Jonathan
Job 3:3–26 Job curseth the day, and services of his birth
Ecclesiastes 12:1–8 The Creator is to be remembred in due time
GEORGE CHAPMAN / HOMER from The Iliads of Homer
from The Third Booke [Helen and the Elders on the Ramparts]
from The Twelfth Booke [Sarpedon’s Speech to Glaucus]
ANONYMOUS A Belmans Song
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from The Winter’s Tale
‘When Daffadils begin to peere’
‘Lawne as white as driven Snow’
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from The Tempest
‘Come unto these yellow sands’
‘Full fadom five thy Father lies’
JOHN WEBSTER from The White Divel 1612 ‘Call for the Robin-Red-brest and the wren’
GEORGE CHAPMAN / EPICTETUS Pleasd with thy Place
THOMAS CAMPION ‘Never weather-beaten Saile’
WILLIAM FOWLER ‘Ship-broken men whom stormy seas sore toss’
JOHN WEBSTER from The Dutchesse of Malfy 1614 ‘Hearke, now every thing is still’
SIR JOHN HARINGTON Of Treason 1615
ANONYMOUS [Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song]
BEN JONSON from Epigrammes 1616
XIV To William Camden
XLV On My First Sonne
LIX On Spies
CXVIII Inviting a Friend to Supper
CI On Gut
BEN JONSON from The Forrest To Heaven
WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN Sonnet (‘How many times Nights silent Queene her Face’)
WILLIAM BROWNE from Britannia’s Pastorals
[The Golden Age: Flower-weaving]
THOMAS CAMPION ‘There is a Garden in her face’
THOMAS CAMPION ‘Now winter nights enlarge’
1618 SIR WALTER RALEGH [Sir Walter Ralegh to his Sonne]
SIR WALTER RALEGH from The Ocean to Scinthia ‘Butt stay my thoughts, make end, geve fortune way’
SIR WALTER RALEGH ‘Even suche is tyme that takes in trust’
1619 MICHAEL DRAYTON from Idea 61 ‘Since ther’s no helpe, Come let us kisse and part’
ANONYMOUS ‘Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight’
1620 JOHN DONNE The Canonization
JOHN DONNE A Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day
JOHN DONNE Loves Growth
JOHN DONNE A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
JOHN DONNE The Exstasie
JOHN DONNE from Holy Sonnets
VII ‘At the round earths imagin’d corners’
X ‘Death be not proud, though some have called thee’
XIV ‘Batter my heart, three person’d God’
JOHN DONNE A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors Last Going into Germany
JOHN DONNE A Hymne to God the Father
1621 KATHERINE, LADY DYER [Epitaph on Sir William Dyer]
LADY MARY WROTH from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus
77 ‘In this strang labourinth how shall I turne?’
96 ‘Late in the Forest I did Cupid see’
1623 WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN [For the Baptiste]
WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN [Content and Resolute]
WILLIAM BROWNE On the Countesse Dowager of Pembroke
1624 SIR HENRY WOTTON On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia
1626 GEORGE SANDYS / AUSONIUS Echo
1627 BEN JONSON My Picture left in Scotland
BEN JONSON An Ode. To Himselfe
MICHAEL DRAYTON from Nimphidia, The Court of Fayrie
[Queen Mab’s Chariot]
MICHAEL DRAYTON These Verses weare Made by Michaell Drayton 1631 (‘Soe well I love thee, as without thee I’)
ANONYMOUS Felton’s Epitaph
ANONYMOUS [Epitaph on the Duke of Buckingham]
GEORGE HERBERT from The Temple 1633
Redemption
Prayer
Church-monuments
Deniall
Hope
The Collar
The Flower
The Answer
A Wreath
Love
FRANCIS QUARLES Embleme IV [Canticles 7.10 I am my 1635 Beloved’s]
EDWARD, LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY Epitaph on Sir Philip 1637 Sidney
ROBERT SEMPILL OF BELTREES The Life and Death of Habbie Simson, the Piper of Kilbarchan
THOMAS JORDAN A Double Acrostich on Mrs Svsanna Blvnt
JOHN MILTON from A Mask Presented at Ludlow-Castle, 1634 [Comus] ‘The Star that bids the Shepherd fold’
THOMAS RANDOLPH A Gratulatory to Mr Ben. Johnson 1638
SIR JOHN SUCKLING Song (‘Why so pale and wan fond Lover?’)
JOHN MILTON Lycidas
BEN JONSON from A Celebration of Charis, in Ten Lyrick Peeces 1640 (Her Triumph)
BEN JONSON [A Fragment of Petronius Arbiter]
SIDNEY GODOLPHIN ‘Faire Friend, ’tis true, your beauties move’
SIDNEY GODOLPHIN ‘Lord when the wise men came from Farr’
HENRY KING An Exequy to His Matchlesse Never to be Forgotten Freind
THOMAS CAREW Song. Celia singing
THOMAS CAREW Epitaph on the Lady Mary Villers
THOMAS CAREW Maria Wentworth
THOMAS CAREW A Song (‘Aske me no more whither doe stray’)
THOMAS CAREW Psalme 91
WILLIAM HABINGTON Nox nocti indicat Scientiam
WILLIAM HABINGTON To Castara, Upon an Embrace
1641 ANONYMOUS On Francis Drake
SIR HENRY WOTTON / MARTIAL Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife
1642 SIR JOHN DENHAM from Cooper’s Hill ‘Here should my wonder dwell, and here my praise’
1645 EDMUND WALLER Song (‘Go lovely Rose’)
EDMUND WALLER Of the Marriage of the Dwarfs
EDMUND WALLER To a Lady in a Garden
JOHN MILTON from On the Morning of Christs Nativity Compos’d 1629 ‘It was the Winter wilde’
1646 RICHARD CRASHAW from Divine Epigrams
Upon Our Saviours Tombe Wherein Never Man was Laid
Upon the Infant Martyrs
RICHARD CRASHAW Musicks Duell
SIR JOHN SUCKLING [Loves Siege]
JOHN HALL An Epicurean Ode
JAMES SHIRLEY Epitaph on the Duke of Buckingham
JAMES SHIRLEY ‘The glories of our blood and state’
1647 JOHN CLEVELAND Epitaph on the Earl of Strafford
1648 SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE / GONGORA A Great Favorit Beheaded
ROBERT HERRICK from Hesperides
The Argument of His Book
Upon Julia’s Voice
Delight in Disorder
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
The Comming of Good Luck
To Meddowes
The Departure of the Good Dœmon
Upon Prew His Maid
On Himselfe
ROBERT HERRICK The White Island: Or Place of the Blest
1649 RICHARD LOVELACE from Lucasta
Song. To Lucasta, Going to the Warres
To Althea from Prison
The Grasse-hopper
WILLIAM DRUMMOND / PASSERAT Song ‘Shephard loveth thow me vell?’
1650 JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE On Himself, upon Hearing What was His Sentence
ANONYMOUS from The Secon
d Scottish Psalter Psalm 124
HENRY VAUGHAN from Silex Scintillans, Or Sacred Poems
The Retreate
‘Silence, and stealth of dayes! ’tis now’
The World
WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT No Platonique Love 1651
JOHN CLEVELAND The Antiplatonick
JOHN CLEVELAND A Song of Marke Anthony
THOMAS STANLEY The Snow-ball
THOMAS STANLEY The Grassehopper
SIR HENRY WOTTON Upon the Sudden Restraint of the Earle of Somerset
SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE / HORACE Odes. IV, 7 To L. Manlius Torquatus
RICHARD CRASHAW from The Flaming Heart. Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphicall Saint Teresa
AURELIAN TOWNSHEND A Dialogue betwixt Time and a 1653 Pilgrime
MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE Of Many Worlds in This World
HENRY VAUGHAN from Silex Scintillans II 1655
‘They are all gone into the world of light!’
Cock-crowing
The Night
ABRAHAM COWLEY from Anacreontiques Translated 1656 Paraphrastically from the Greek
II Drinking
X The Grashopper
ABRAHAM COWLEY from Davideis
[Lot’s Wife]
WILLIAM STRODE Song (‘I saw faire Cloris walke alone’)
WILLIAM STRODE On Westwell Downes
JOHN TAYLOR and ANONYMOUS Non-sense
SIR JOHN SUCKLING ‘Out upon it, I have lov’d’
GEORGE DANIEL Ode. The Robin 1657
RICHARD LOVELACE The Snayl 1659
SAMUEL BUTLER from Hudibras 1662
[The Presbyterian Knight]
ABRAHAM COWLEY Ode. Upon Dr. Harvey 1663
ABRAHAM COWLEY / HORACE The Country Mouse. A Paraphrase upon Horace Book II, Satire 6
EDWARD, LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY Sonnet. Made upon the 1665 Groves near Merlou Castle
1667 JOHN MILTON from Paradise Lost
from Book I [Invocation]
from Book I [‘Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell’]
from Book IX [‘The Serpent finds Eve alone’]
from Book XI [‘Michael sets before Adam in vision what shall happ’n till the Flood’]
from Book XII [‘Adam and Eve led out of Paradise’]
KATHERINE PHILIPS An Answer to Another Perswading a Lady to Marriage
KATHERINE PHILIPS To My Excellent Lucasia, on Our Friendship
KATHERINE PHILIPS To My Lord Biron’s Tune of — Adieu Phillis
1668 SIR JOHN DENHAM / HOMER Sarpedon’s Speech to Glaucus in the 12th Book of Homer
JOHN MILTON from Samson Agonistes ‘… but chief of all, O loss of sight’
1671 THOMAS TRAHERNE from Centuries of Meditations ‘The Corn was Orient and Immortal Wheat’
THOMAS TRAHERNE Wonder
THOMAS TRAHERNE Shadows in the Water
RALPH KNEVET The Vote
1672 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT Song. Endimion Porter, and Olivia
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT The Philosopher and the Lover; to a Mistress Dying
1673 JOHN MILTON ‘Methought I saw my late espoused Saint’
JOHN MILTON ‘When I consider how my light is spent’
JOHN MILTON On the Late Massacher in Piemont
JOHN MILTON To Mr. Cyriack Skinner upon His Blindness
JOHN MILTON / HORACE The Fifth Ode of Horace, Lib. I
JOHN DRYDEN from Marriage A-la-Mode
1677 Song (‘Whil’st Alexis lay prest’)
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER Love and Life. A Song
APHRA BEHN Song. Love Arm’d
APHRA BEHN ‘A thousand martyrs I have made’
1679 JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER from A Letter from Artemiza in the Towne to Chloe in the Countrey ‘Chloe, in Verse by your commande I write’
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER from A Satyr against Reason and Mankind ‘Were I (who to my cost already am’
1680 NATHANIEL WANLEY The Resurrection
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER The Disabled Debauchee
ANDREW MARVELL An Horatian Ode upon Cromwel’s Return from 1681 Ireland
ANDREW MARVELL Bermudas
ANDREW MARVELL To His Coy Mistress
ANDREW MARVELL The Mower to the Glo-Worms
ANDREW MARVELL The Mower against Gardens
ANDREW MARVELL The Definition of Love
ANDREW MARVELL The Garden
JOHN OLDHAM / HORACE from An Imitation of Horace. Book I. Satyr IX ‘As I was walking in the Mall of late’
JOHN DRYDEN from Absalom and Achitophel
[Monmouth]
[Shaftesbury]
JOHN BUNYAN from The Pilgrims Progress 1684
[Valiant-for-Truth’s Song]
JOHN DRYDEN To the Memory of Mr. Oldham
JOHN DRYDEN / HORACE Horat. Ode 29. Book 3 Paraphras’d in 1685 Pindarique Verse
JOHN DRYDEN / LUCRETIUS from Latter Part of the Third Book of Lucretius. Against the Fear of Death
JOHN DRYDEN / LUCRETIUS from Fourth Book of Lucretius. Concerning the Nature of Love
EDMUND WALLER Of the Last Verses in the Book 1686
PHILIP AYRES / THEOCRITUS The Death of Adonis 1687
JANE BARKER To Her Lovers Complaint 1688
CHARLES COTTON Evening Quatrains 1689
CHARLES COTTON An Epitaph on M.H.
CHARLES COTTON To My Dear and Most Worthy Friend, Mr. Isaak Walton
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER A SONG of a Young 1691 LADY. To Her Ancient Lover
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER A Song (‘Absent from thee I languish still’)
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER The Mistress. A Song
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER / LUCRETIUS from De rerum natura, 1.44–9 ‘The Gods, by right of Nature, must possess’
THOMAS HEYRICK On an Indian Tomineois, the Least of Birds
SIR CHARLES SEDLEY On a Cock at Rochester 1692
JOHN DRYDEN / JUVENAL from The Sixth Satyr of Juvenal 1693 ‘In Saturn’s Reign, at Nature’s Early Birth’
JOHN DRYDEN / OVID from The First Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
[Deucalion and Pyrrha]
1694 JOHN DRYDEN To My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve, on His Comedy, Call’d The Double-Dealer
1697 JOHN DRYDEN / VIRGIL from Virgil’s Aeneis
from The Second Book [The Death of Priam]
from The Fourth Book [Fame]
from The Sixth Book [Charon]
1700 JOHN DRYDEN / OVID Of the Pythagorean Philosophy, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book Fifteen
JOHN DRYDEN from The Secular Masque ‘CHRONOS, Chronos, mend thy Pace’
1701 SIR CHARLES SEDLEY Song (‘Phillis, let’s shun the common Fate’)
ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA from The Spleen ‘O’er me, alas! thou dost too much prevail’
1704 WILLIAM CONGREVE Song (‘Pious Celinda goes to Pray’rs’)
WILLIAM CONGREVE A Hue and Cry after Fair Amoret
1706 ISAAC WATTS The Day of Judgement. An Ode. Attempted in English Sapphick
1707 ISAAC WATTS Crucifixion to the World by the Cross of Christ Gal. vi.14
1709 ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA Adam Pos’d
MATTHEW PRIOR An Ode (‘The Merchant, to secure his Treasure’)
AMBROSE PHILLIPS A Winter-Piece
1710 JONATHAN SWIFT A Description of a City Shower
1712 JOSEPH ADDISON Ode (‘The Spacious Firmament on high’)
1713 ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA A Nocturnal Reverie
1714 SAMUEL JONES The Force of Love
ALEXANDER POPE from The Rape of the Lock
from Canto I
from Canto V
1716 JOHN GAY from Trivia: Or The Art of Walking the Streets of London
[Of the Weather]
1717 ALEXANDER POPE Epistle to Miss Blount, on Her Leaving the Town, after the Coronation
1718 MATTHEW PRIOR A Better Answer to Cloe Jealous
MATTHEW PRIOR The Lady Who Offers Her Looking-Gl
ass to Venus
MATTHEW PRIOR A True Maid
ISAAC WATTS Man Frail, and God Eternal 1719
ALLAN RAMSAY Polwart on the Green 1720
JOHN GAY My Own EPITAPH
ALEXANDER POPE To Mr. Gay… on the Finishing His House 1722
JONATHAN SWIFT A Satirical Elegy. On the Death of a Late Famous General
WILLIAM DIAPER / OPPIAN from Oppian’s Halieuticks
[The Loves of the Fishes]
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU Epistle from Mrs. Y[onge] to her 1724 Husband
EDWARD YOUNG from Love of Fame. Satire V 1725 ‘The languid lady next appears in state’
HENRY CAREY from Namby-Pamby. A Panegyric on the New Versification
ABEL EVANS On Sir John Vanbrugh (The Architect). An 1726 Epigrammatical Epitaph
JOHN DYER from Grongar Hill ‘Now, I gain the Mountain’s Brow’
ALLAN RAMSAY / HORACE ‘What young Raw Muisted Beau Bred at his Glass’
JAMES THOMSON from Summer
[‘Forenoon. Summer Insects Described’]
[‘Night. Summer Meteors. A Comet’]
JOHN GAY from Fables 1727 The Wild Boar and the Ram
THOMAS SHERIDAN Tom Punsibi’s Letter to Dean Swift
HENRY CAREY A Lilliputian Ode on their Majesties’ Accession
JOHN GAY from The Beggar’s Opera 1728 ‘Were I laid on Greenland’s Coast’
ALEXANDER POPE from An Epistle to Burlington 1731 ‘At Timon’s Villa let us pass a day’
JONATHAN SWIFT The Day of Judgement
JONATHAN SWIFT An Epigram on Scolding
JONATHAN SWIFT Mary the Cook-Maid’s Letter to Dr. 1732 Sheridan
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU [A Summary of Lord Lyttleton’s 1733 ‘Advice to a lady’]
ALEXANDER POPE from An Epistle to Bathurst
[Sir Balaam]
GEORGE FAREWELL Quaerè
JONATHAN SWIFT A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed 1734
ALEXANDER POPE from Of the Characters of Women: An Epistle to 1735 a Lady ‘Nothing so true as what you once let fall’
ALEXANDER POPE from An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot ‘You think this cruel? take it for a rule’
ALEXANDER POPE Epitaph Intended for Sir Isaac Newton
JOHN DYER My Ox Duke
1737 MATTHEW GREEN from The Spleen ‘To cure the mind’s wrong biass, spleen’
1738 SAMUEL JOHNSON / JUVENAL from London: A Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal ‘Tho’ grief and fondness in my breast rebel’
ALEXANDER POPE from Epilogue to the Satires
from Dialogue I ‘Virtue may chuse the high or low Degree’
ALEXANDER POPE Epitaph for One Who Would Not Be Buried in Westminster Abbey
1739 JONATHAN SWIFT from Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift ‘The Time is not remote, when I’