George Chapman

Though my years would have me old, I am not, But have the gentle jerk of youth in me, As fresh as he that hath a maiden's chin.

Her mind—the beam of God—draws in the fires Of her chaste eyes, from all earth's tempting fuel; * * * And in th' untainted temple of her heart Doth the divorceless nuptials celebrate 'Twixt God and her; where love's profaned dart

But my love is the cordial of souls, Teaching by passion what perfection is, In whose fix'd beauties shine the sacred scroll, And long-lost records of your human bliss, Spirit to flesh, and soul to spirit giving, Love flows not from my …

And eat your entrails out with ecstacies.

Cupid’s bonfires burning in the eye.

Too much desire to please, pleasure divorces.

Gentle and noble are their tempers framed, That can be quicken'd with perfumes and sounds.

Use makes things nothing huge, and huge things nothing.

Obscurity in affection of words and indigested conceits is pedantical and childish.

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

Music, and mood, she loves, but love she hates (As curious ladies do, their public cates), This train, with meteors, comets, lightenings, The dreadful presence of our empress sings: Which grant for ever (O eternal Night) Till virtue …

Great goddess, to whose throne in Cynthian fires, This earthly altar endless fumes expires; Therefore, in fumes of sighs and fires of grief, To fearful chances thou send'st bold relief, Happy, thrice happy type, and nurse of death, Who, …

Let no man value at a little price A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words.

For one heat, all know, doth drive out another, One passion doth expel another still.

Virtue is not malicious; wrong done her Is righted even when men grant they err.

Homer's poems were writ from a free fury, an absolute and full soul; Virgil's out of a courtly, laborious, and altogether imitatory spirit: not a simile he hath but is Homer's; not an invention, person, or disposition but is wholly or …

O incredulity! the wit of fools, That slovenly will spit on all things fair, The coward’s castle, and the sluggard’s cradle.