Philip Sydney
Edmund Spenser
Samuel Daniel
Walter Ralegh
Henry Vaugham
Francis Bacon George Herbert
John Fletcher
HENCE, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights,
Wherein you spend your folly:
There’s nought in this life sweet
If man were wise to see’t, 5
But only melancholy,
O sweetest melancholy!
Welcome, folded arms, and fixèd eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that’s fasten’d to the ground, 10
A tongue chain’d up without a sound!
Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed save bats and owls! 15
A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley;
Nothing’s so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.