Tell me where is Fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourishèd?
    Reply, reply.
It is engender’d in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and Fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies.
    Let us all ring Fancy’s knell:
    I’ll begin it,—Ding, ****, bell.
All.  Ding, ****, bell.

Urns and odours bring away!
  Vapours, sighs, darken the day!
Our dole more deadly looks than dying;
  Balms and gums and heavy cheers,
  Sacred vials fill’d with tears,
And clamours through the wild air flying!

  Come, all sad and solemn shows,
  That are quick-eyed Pleasure’s foes!
  We convènt naught else but woes.

Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say, “This poet lies,
Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.”
So should my papers, yellowed with their age,
Be scorned like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage,
And stretchèd metre of an antique song.
    But were some child of yours alive that time,
    You should live twice, in it and in my rhyme.

Come unto these yellow sands,
  And then take hands:
Court’sied when you have, and kiss’d,—
  The wild waves whist,—
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
      Hark, hark!
        Bow, wow,
      The watch-dogs bark:
        Bow, wow.
      Hark, hark! I hear
  The strain of strutting chanticleer
  Cry, ****-a-******-dow!

You spotted snakes with double tongue,
  Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;
  Come not near our fairy queen.

      Philomel, with melody,
      Sing in our sweet lullaby;
    Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
        Never harm,
        Nor spell nor charm,
      Come our lovely lady nigh;
      So, good night, with lullaby.

Weaving spiders, come not here;
  Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
  Worm nor snail, do no offence.

      Philomel, with melody,
      Sing in our sweet lullaby;
    Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
        Never harm,
        Nor spell nor charm,
      Come our lovely lady nigh;
      So, good night, with lullaby.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
  Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
                        Ding-****.
  Hark! now I hear them—
                Ding-****, bell!

Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes
That they behold and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes corrupt by overpartial looks,
Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes’ falsehood hast thou forgèd hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
Why should my heart think that a several plot
Which my heart knows the wide world’s common place?
Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
    In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
    And to this false plague are they now transferred.

Take, O take those lips away,
  That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
  Lights that do mislead the morn!
But my kisses bring again,
              Bring again;
Seals of love, but seal’d in vain,
              Seal’d in vain!

Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
  Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
  There had made a lasting spring.

Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
  Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
  Killing care and grief of heart
  Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wrecked, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride.
    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
    The worst was this: my love was my decay.