UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DE VENEZUELA

Facultad de Humanidades y Educacin

Escuela de Idiomas Modernos
Departamento de Ingls
Cultura, Temas y Textos 3
1er lapso 2014
Profesor: Reygar Bernal

OTHER ELIZABETHAN POETS

Samuel Daniel (ca. 1562-1619)
Fair is my love, and cruel as shes fair:
Her brow shades frowns, although her ayes are sunny,
Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair,
And her disdains are gall, her favors honey.
A modest maid, decked with a blush of honor,
Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love;
The wonder of all eyes that look upon her,
Sacred on earth, designed a saint above.
Chastity and Beauty, which were deadly foes,
Live reconciled friends within her brow;
And had she pity to conjoin with those,
Then who had heard the plaints I utter now?
Oh had she not been fair and thus unkind,
My muse had slept, and none had known my mind.
(Delia 6)

Robert Herrick (ca. 1591-1674)

TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher hes a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer hes to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

WHEN I WAS FAIR AND YOUNG
When I was fair and young, and favor graced me,
Of many I was sought, their mistress for to be;
But I did scorn them all, and answered them therefore,
Go, go, go seek some otherwhere!
Importune me no more!
How many weeping eyes I made to pine with woe,
How many sighing hearts, I have no skill to show;
Yet I the prouder grew, and answered them therefore,
Go, go, go seek some otherwhere!
Importune me no more!
Then spake fair Venus son, that proud victorious boy,
And said, Fine dame, since that you be so coy,
I will so pluck your plumes that you shall say no more,
Go, go, go seek some otherwhere!
Importune me no more!
When he had spake these words, such change grew in my breast
That neither night nor day since that, I could take any rest.
Then lo! I did repent that I had said before,
Go, go, go seek some otherwhere!
Importune me no more!
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
ASTROPHEL AND STELLA
Who will in fairest book of Nature know,
How virtue may best lodged in beauty be,
Let him but learn of Love to read in thee,
Stella, whose fair lines, which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night birds fly;
That inward sun in thyne eyes shineth so.
And not content to be Perfections heir
Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair.
So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,
As fast thy Virtue bends that love to good:
But ah, desire still cries, give me some food.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618)

WHAT IS OUR LIFE?

What is our life? A play of passion,
Our mirth the musicke of division,
Our mothers wombes the trying houses be,
Where we are drest for this short Comedy,
Heaven the Judicious sharpe spectator is,
That sits and markes still who doth act amisse,
Our graves that hide us from the searching Sun,
Are like drawne curtaynes when the play is done,
Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
Onely we dye in earnest, thats not Jest.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

All the worlds a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurses arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with woeful ballad
Made to his mistress eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannons mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lind,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
Into the lean and slipperd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well savd, a word too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
(As You Like It, Act II Scene Vii, 1. 139-166)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Lifes but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth, Act V, Scene V, 1. 19-28)

John Donne (1572-1631)

HOLY SONNET
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee;
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou'art slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie,' or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then they stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.