Helen Gardner's classic anthology of selected works by England's metaphysical poets.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Note on the Text
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the Third Edition
• Sir Walter Ralegh
  • The Passionate Mans Pilgrimage
  • "What is our Life?"
• Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke
  • Caelica: Sonnets 87 and 88
  • Chorus Sacerdotum
• Robert Southwell
  • Marige Magdalens Complaint
  • The Burning Babe
  • New Heaven, New Warre
• William Shakespeare
  • The Phoenix and the Turtle
• William Alabaster
  • Upon the Ensignes of Christes Crucifyinge
  • Incarnatio est maximum donum Dei
• Sir Henry Wotton
  • A Hymn to my God in a night of my late Sicknesse
  • On his Mistris, the Queen of Bohemia
  • Upon the Sudden Restraint of the Earle of Somerset
• John Donne
  • Satyre: Of Religion
  • Elegie: His Picture
  • Elegie: On his Mistris
  • Elegie: To his Mistris Going to Bed
  • The Calme
  • The Flea
  • The Good-Morrow
  • Song: "Goe, and catche a falling starre"
  • The Undertaking
  • The Sunne Rising
  • The Canonization
  • Song: "Sweetest love, I do no goe"
  • Aire and Angels
  • The Anniversarie
  • Twicknam Garden
  • Loves Growth
  • The Dreame
  • A Valediction: of Weeping
  • Loves Alchymie
  • A Nocturnall upon S. Lucies day
  • The Apparition
  • A Valediction: forbidding mourning
  • The Extasie
  • Loves Deitie
  • The Will
  • The Relique
  • The Expiration
  • To Mr. Rowland Woodward
  • Holy Sonnets: Divine Meditations
    • 1. "As due by many titles I resigne"
    • 2. "Oh my blacke Soule! now thou art summoned"
    • 3. "This is my playes last scene, here heavens appoint"
    • 4. "At the round earths imagin'd corners, blow"
    • 5. "If poysonous mineralls, and if that tree"
    • 6. "Death be not proud, though some have called thee"
  • Holy Sonnet: "Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you"
  • Holy Sonnet: "Since she whome I lovd, hath payd her last debt"
  • Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
  • A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany
  • Hymne to God my God, in my sicknesse
  • A Hymne to God the Father
• Ben Jonson
  • Epitaph on S. P.
  • My Picture left in Scotland
  • A Hymne to God the Father
• Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury
  • To his Watch, when he could not sleep
  • Elegy over a Tomb
  • Sonnet of Black Beauty
  • An Ode upon a Question moved, Whether Love should continue for ever?
• Aurelian Townshend
  • To the Countesse of Salisbury
  • Youth and Beauty
  • A Dialogue betwixt Time and a Pilgrime
  • Song: "Though regions farr devided"
  • To the Lady May
  • Upon Kinde and True Love
• Sir Francis Kynaston
  • To Cynthia. On concealment of her beauty
  • To Cynthia. On her changing
• Henry King
  • Sonnet: "Tell me no more how fair she is"
  • The Surrender
  • The Exequy
  • Sic Vita
  • My Midnight Meditation
  • A Contemplation upon Flowers
• Francis Quarles
  • On Those that Deserve It
  • On Zacheus
  • A Forme of Prayer
  • Wherefore hidest thou thy face
  • My beloved is mine, and I am his
• George Herbert
  • The Agonie
  • Redemption
  • Easter-wings
  • Affliction
  • Prayer
  • The Temper
  • Jordan (I)
  • Deniall
  • Vanitie
  • Vertue
  • The Pearl
  • Man
  • Life
  • Mortification
  • Jordan (II)
  • Dialogue
  • The Collar
  • The Pulley
  • The Flower
  • Aaron
  • The Forerunners
  • Discipline
  • Death
  • Love
• Thomas Carew
  • An Elegie upon the death of Dr. John Donne
  • Mediocritie in love rejected
  • To my inconstant Mistris
  • Perswasions to enjoy
  • Boldnesse in love
  • Elegy on Maria Wentworth
  • To Ben. Jonson
  • To a Lady that desired I would love her
  • Song: "Aske me no more where Jove bestowes"
  • To Master George Sands
• Owen Felltham
  • Song: "When, Dearest, I but think on thee"
• William Habington
  • Against them who lay unchastity to the sex of Women
  • Nox nocti indicat Scientiam
  • Song: "Fine young folly, though you were"
• Thomas Randolph
  • An Elegie
  • Upon his Picture
  • On a maide of honour
• Sir William Davenant
  • To the Queene, entertain'd at night
  • For the Lady, Olivia Porter
  • Song: "The Lark now leaves his watry Nest"
  • Endimion Porter and Olivia
  • The Philosopher and the Lover
  • The Souldier going to the Field
• Edmund Waller
  • To my young Lady, Lucy Sidney
  • The selfe-banished
  • Song: "Go lovely Rose"
  • Of my Lady Isabella playing on the Lute
  • An Apologie for having loved before
  • Of the Last Verses in the Book
• Sir Richard Fanshawe
  • An Ode upon His Majesties Proclamation
  • The Fall
• John Milton
  • On Shakespear
  • On the University Carrier
  • On Time
• Sir John Suckling
  • Song: "Why so pale and wan fond Lover?"
  • Sonnet: "Of thee (kind boy) I ask no red and white)
  • Sonnet: "Oh! for some honest Lovers ghost"
  • Song: "Out upon it, I have lov'd"
• Sidney Godolphin
  • Constancye
  • Song: "Or love me lesse, or love me more"
  • Song: "Noe more unto my thoughts appeare"
  • Hymn: "Lord when the wise men came from farr"
• William Cartwright
  • To Chloe who wish'd her self young enough for me
  • A New-years-gift to Brian Lord Bishop of Sarum
  • On the Queens Return from the Low Countries
• Richard Crashaw
  • Wishes to his (supposed) Mistresse
  • On Hope, by way of Question and Answer, between A. Cowley, and R. Crashaw
  • And he answered them nothing
  • To our Lord, upon the Water made Wine
  • The Weeper
  • An Hymne of the Nativity, sung as by the Shepherds
  • Hymn to Sainte Teresa
  • Charitas Nimia: or the Deare Bargain
  • A Letter to the Countess of Denbigh
• John Cleveland
  • To the State of Love, or the Senses Festival
  • The Antiplatonick
  • Epitaph on the Earl of Strafford
• Abraham Cowley
  • The Change
  • Ode: Of Wit
  • On the Death of Mr. Crashaw
  • Drinking
  • Hymn to Light
• Richard Lovelace
  • To Lucasta, Going to the Warres
  • To Amarantha, Thatshe would dishevell her haire
  • Gratiana dauncing and singing
  • The Scrutinie
  • The Grasse-hopper
  • To Althea, from Prison
• Andrew Marvell
  • A Dialogue between The Resolved Soul, and Created Pleasure
  • On a Drop of Dew
  • The Coronet
  • Eyes and Tears
  • Bermudas
  • A Dialogue between the Soul and Body
  • The Nymph complaining for the death of her Faun
  • To his Coy Mistress
  • The Fair Singer
  • The Definition of Love
  • The Picture of little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers
  • The Mower to the Glo-Worms
  • The Garden
  • An Horatian Ode upon Cromwel's Return from Ireland
• Henry Vaughan
  • Regeneration
  • The Showre
  • The Retreate
  • "Come, come, what doe I here?"
  • The Morning-watch
  • "Silence, and stealth of dayes! 'tis now"
  • Peace
  • The Dawning
  • The World
  • Man
  • "I walkt the other day (to spend my hour)"
  • "They are all gone into the world of light!"
  • Cock-crowing
  • The Starre
  • The Night
  • The Water-fall
  • Quickness
• Thomas Stanley
  • The Magnet
  • The Repulse
  • La Belle Confidente
• John Hall
  • The Call
  • An Epicurean Ode
  • On an Houre-glasse
• Thomas Traherne
  • On News
  • Shadows in the Water
• John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
  • The Mistress
  • A Song: "Absent from thee I languish still"
  • A Song of a Young Lady. To her Ancient Lover
  • Love and Life
  • Upon Nothing
• Thomas Heyrick
  • On a Sunbeam
  • On the Death of a Monkey
• Richard Leigh
  • The Eccho
  • Sleeping on her Couch
• John Norris of Bemerton
  • Hymn to Darkness
• Select Reading List
• Biographical Notes
• Index of First Lines
• Index of Authors