| Geoffrey Chaucer.
c. 1340–1400. |
Critical Introduction by Thomas Humphry Ward |
| Extracts from The Boke of the Duchesse |
| Extracts from Troylus and Criseyde |
| Extracts from The Parlement of Foules |
| Extracts from The Hous of Fame |
| Extracts from Prologue to the Legende of Goode Women |
| Extracts from Prologue to the Canterbury Tales |
| Extracts from The Tale of the Man of Lawe |
| Extracts from The Clerkes Tale |
| Extracts from The Frankeleynes Tale |
| Extracts from The Knightes Tale |
| Good Counseil of Chaucer |
| Extracts from The Romaunt of the Rose |
| Extracts from The Flower and the Leaf |
| Extracts from The Court of Love |
| William Langland.
1332?–1400?. |
Critical Introduction by Walter W. Skeat |
| Extracts from The Vision of Piers the Plowman |
| John Gower.
1325?–1408. |
Critical Introduction by Thomas Arnold |
| Extracts from Cinkante Balades |
| Extracts from Confessio Amantis: Prologue |
| Alexander and the Robber |
| The Story of Constance |
| John Lydgate.
c. 1370–c. 1451. |
Critical Introduction by Thomas Arnold |
| Extracts from London Lickpenny |
| Extracts from The Dietary, or Rules for Health |
| Extracts from Falls of Princes: Description of the Golden Age |
| Thomas Hoccleve.
c. 1368–c. 1426. |
Critical Introduction by Thomas Arnold |
| Extracts from the De Regimine Principum |
| King James I of Scotland.
1394–1437. |
Critical Introduction by Thomas Humphry Ward |
| Extract from The King’s Quair |
| Poem from The Gude and Godlie Ballates |
| Robert Henryson.
1430?–1506?. |
Critical Introduction by William Ernest Henley |
| The Garmond of Fair Ladies |
| The Taill of the Lyoun and the Mous |
| William Dunbar.
1460?–1520?. |
Critical Introduction by John Nichol |
| Extracts from The Thrissill and the Rois |
| Extracts from The Goldyn Targe |
| Extracts from The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis |
| Extracts from The Lament for the Makaris Quhen He Was Seik |
| Gawain Douglas.
c. 1474–1522. |
Critical Introduction by Andrew Lang |
| Extracts from The Palice of Honour: A Desert Terrible |
| The Fête Champêtre |
| A Ballade in Commendation of Honour |
| Extracts from the Aeneid: A Scottish Winter Landscape |
| The Ghost of Creusa |
| Dido’s Hunting |
| Sleep |
| Spring |
| The Tribes of the Dead |
| The Destiny of Rome |
| Stephen Hawes.
d. 1523. |
Critical Introduction by John Churton Collins |
| Extracts from The Pastime of Pleasure: Dialogue between Graunde Amoure and La Pucel |
| Amoure Laments the Absence of La Belle Pucel |
| The Character of a True Knight |
| Description of La Belle Pucel |
| John Skelton.
1460?–1529. |
Critical Introduction by John Churton Collins |
| A Lullabye |
| Extract from The Bowge of Courte: Picture of Riot |
| Extract from The Garlande of Laurell: To Maystress Margaret Hussey |
| Extract from Colyn Cloute |
| Sir David Lindsay.
1490?–1555. |
Critical Introduction by John Nichol |
| From the Prologue to The Dreme |
| Extracts from The Testament and Complaynt of the Papingo |
| Extracts from Ane Satyre of the Threi Estaitis |
| Extracts from The Monarchie |
| The Hope of Immortality |
| Ballads. |
Critical Introduction by Andrew Lang |
| Historical: Sir Patrick Spens |
| Edom o’ Gordon |
| Romantic: Glasgerion |
| The Douglas Tragedy |
| The Twa Corbies |
| Waly, Waly |
| Supernatural: Clerk Saunders |
| The Wife of Usher’s Well |
| A Lyke-Wake Dirge |
| A Song of the Scotch Marches: Kinmont Willie |
| Robin Hood Ballads: Robin Hood Rescuing the Widow’s Three Sons |
| Robin Hood’s Death and Burial |
| Domestic: The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington |
| Sir Thomas Wyatt.
1503–1542. |
Critical Introduction by John Churton Collins |
| Extracts from Songs and Sonnets |
| Extract from The Second Satire |
| Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
1517–1547. |
Critical Introduction by John Churton Collins |
| Description of Spring |
| A Complaint by Night of the Lover Not Beloved |
| Lines Written in Imprisonment at Windsor |
| The Means to Attain Happy Life |
| A Praise of His Love |
| An Epitaph on Clere, Surrey’s Faithful Friend and Follower |
| On the Death of Sir Thomas Wyatt |
| George Gascoigne.
d. 1577. |
Critical Introduction by John W. Hales |
| The Arraignment of a Lover |
| A Strange Passion of a Lover |
| Extracts from The Steel Glass: Piers Ploughman |
| Epilogus |
| Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset.
1536–1608. |
Critical Introduction by Richard William Church |
| Extract from The Induction |
| Complaint of the Duke of Buckingham |
| Sleep |
| Edmund Spenser.
1552?–1599. |
Critical Introduction by Richard William Church |
| Extracts from The Shepheard’s Calender: Fable of the Oak and the Briar |
| Chase after Love |
| Description of Maying |
| The Complaint of Age |
| Extracts from The Faerie Queene: The Red Cross Knight and Una |
| The House of Pride |
| Una’s Marriage |
| Phaedria and the Idle Lake |
| The Cave of Mammon |
| The Bower of Bliss |
| The Gardens of Venus |
| Wooing of Amoret |
| The Quelling of the Blatant Beast |
| Claims of Mutability Pleaded before Nature |
| Extract from The Teares of the Muses: Complaint of Thalia (Comedy) |
| Sonnets |
| Epithalamion |
| Sir Philip Sidney.
1554–1586. |
Critical Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward |
| Sonnets from Astrophel and Stella |
| Songs from Astrophel and Stella |
| Philomela |
| A Dirge |
| Two Sonnets |
| Poems from The Arcadia |
| Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.
1554–1628. |
Critical Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward |
| Extracts from Mustapha: Chorus of Tartars |
| Chorus of Priests |
| Chorus of Good and Evil Spirits from Alaham |
| Extracts from Caelica: Seed-time and Harvest |
| Elizabetha Regina |
| Sonnet: ‘Sion lies waste, and Thy Jerusalem’ |
| An Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney |
| Sir Edward Dyer.
1543–1607. |
Critical Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward |
| My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is |
| To Phillis the Fair Shepherdess |
| Extracts from Sixe Idillia: Helen’s Epithalamion |
| The Prayer of Theocritus for Syracuse |
| Henry Constable.
1562–1613. |
Critical Introduction by Andrew Lang |
| A Pastoral Song |
| The Shepherd’s Song of Venus and Adonis |
| Sonnet to Sir Philip Sidney’s Soul |
| Thomas Watson.
1555–1592. |
Critical Introduction by Thomas Humphry Ward |
| Extracts from The Hecatompathia: Passion II |
| Passion XL |
| Passion LXV |
| John Lyly.
1555?–1606. |
Critical Introduction by William Minto |
| Songs from Plays: Sappho’s Song (from Sappho and Phao) |
| Apelles’ Song (from Alexander and Campaspe) |
| Pan’s Song (from Midas) |
| George Peele.
1556–1596. |
Critical Introduction by William Minto |
| A Farewell to Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake |
| Robert Greene.
1558–1592. |
Critical Introduction by Edmund W. Gosse |
| Sephestia’s Song to Her Child |
| Samela |
| Fawnia |
| The Palmer’s Ode in Never Too Late |
| Song: ‘Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content’ |
| Philomela’s Ode |
| Orpheus’ Song: ‘He that did sing the motions of the stars’ |
| Christopher Marlowe.
1564–1593. |
Critical Introduction by Andrew Cecil Bradley |
| The Passionate Shepherd to His Love |
| A Fragment: ‘I walk’d along a stream, for pureness rare’ |
| Extracts from the First Sestiad of Hero and Leander |
| Thomas Lodge.
1558–1625. |
Critical Introduction by Edmund W. Gosse |
| Rosalynd’s Madrigal |
| Rosader’s Description of Rosalynd |
| The Harmony of Love |
| Phillis’ Sickness |
| Love’s Wantonness |
| William Warner.
1558?–1609. |
Critical Introduction by George Saintsbury |
| Extract from Albion’s England: Before the Battle of Hastings |
| William Shakespeare.
1564–1616. |
Critical Introduction by Edward Dowden |
| Extracts from Venus and Adonis |
| Extracts from Lucrece |
| Extracts from Sonnets |
| Songs from Plays: A Morning Song for Imogen (from Cymbeline) |
| Silvia (from The Two Gentlemen of Verona) |
| Sigh No More, Ladies (from Much Ado about Nothing) |
| A Lover’s Lament (from Twelfth Night) |
| Ariel’s Song (from The Tempest) |
| A Sea Dirge (from The Tempest) |
| In the Greenwood (from As You Like It) |
| Winter (from Love’s Labour’s Lost) |
| Song of Autolycus (from The Winter’s Tale) |
| Samuel Daniel.
1562–1619. |
Critical Introduction by George Saintsbury |
| Sonnet LI. To Delia |
| Extracts from The History of the Civil War: The Death of Talbot |
| To the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland |
| Extract from Hymen’s Triumph |
| Richard Barnfield.
1574–1627. |
Critical Introduction by Thomas Humphry Ward |
| Sonnet from Cynthia: ‘Beauty and Majesty are fallen at odds’ |
| Extracts from Poems in Divers Humors: Sonnet to His Friend Maister R. L.: ‘If music and sweet poetry agree’ |
| An Ode: ‘As it fell upon a day’ |
| Robert Southwell.
c. 1561–1595. |
Critical Introduction by John W. Hales |
| Times Go by Turns |
| Loss in Delay |
| The Burning Babe |
| Extract from St. Peter’s Complaint |
| Sir Walter Raleigh.
1554?–1618. |
Critical Introduction by John W. Hales |
| A Vision upon This Conceit of The Fairy Queen |
| Reply to Marlowe’s ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’ |
| The Lie |
| His Pilgrimage |
| Verses Found in His Bible in the Gate-House at Westminster |
| Elizabethan Miscellanies. |
Critical Introduction by Thomas Humphry Ward |
| From The Paradyse of Dainty Devises: Amantium Irae (R. Edwards) |
| From A Handefull of Pleasant Delites: A Proper Sonnet: ‘I smile to see how you devise’ (Anonymous) |
| From The Arbor of Amorous Devises: A Sweet Lullaby (Anonymous) |
| From England’s Helicon: A Palinode (Edmund Bolton) |
| Phillida and Corydon (Nicolas Breton) |
| To Colin Clout (Shepherd Tonie) |
| Phillida’s Love-call to Her Corydon, and His Replying (Ignoto) |
| From Davison’s Poetical Rapsody: A Fiction: How Cupid Made a Nymph Wound Herself with His Arrows (Anonymous, but attributed to A. W.) |
| A Sonnet to the Moon (Charles Best) |
| Sonnet: ‘Were I as base as is the lowly plain’ (J. Sylvester) |
| A Hymn in Praise of Neptune (T. Campion) |
| Of Corinna’s Singing (T. Campion) |
| Madrigals |
| George Chapman.
1559?–1634. |
Critical Introduction by Andrew Lang |
| The Thames (from Ovid’s Banquet of Sense) |
| The Spirit of Homer (from The Tears of Peace) |
| The Procession of Time |
| Helen on the Rampart (from Iliad III) |
| The Camp at Night (from Iliad VIII) |
| The Grief of Achilles for the Slaying of Patroclus, Menoetius’ Son (from Iliad XVIII) |
| Hermes in Calypso’s Island (from Odyssey V) |
| Odysseus’ Speech to Nausicaa (from Odyssey VI) |
| The Song the Sirens Sung (from Odyssey XII) |
| Odysseus Reveals Himself to His Father (from Odyssey XXIV) |
| Michael Drayton.
1563–1631. |
Critical Introduction by George Saintsbury |
| Queen Margaret to William de la Pool, Duke of Suffolk |
| To the Cambro-Britons and Their Harp, His Ballad of Agincourt |
| The Arming of Pigwiggen (from Nymphidia) |
| Extract from Polyolbion: ‘The Naiads and the nymphs extremely overjoy’d’ |
| Sonnet: ‘Since there ’s no help, come let us kiss and part’ |
| Joseph Hall.
1574–1656. |
Critical Introduction by John Churton Collins |
| The Golden Age |
| Hollow Hospitality |
| A Coxcomb |
| A Deserted Mansion |
| Advice to Marry Betimes |
| John Marston.
1575?–1634. |
Critical Introduction by William Minto |
| To Detraction |
| To Everlasting Oblivion |
| Sir John Davies.
1570–1626. |
Critical Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward |
| Extracts from Nosce Teipsum: The Soul Compared to a River |
| The Soul Compared to a Virgin Wooed in Marriage |
| Extract from Orchestra, or A Poeme of Dauncing: Antinous Praises Dancing before Queen Penelope |
| From Hymnes of Astraea, in Acrosticke Verse: To the Spring |
| To the Nightingale |
| To the Month of September |
| John Donne.
1572–1631. |
Critical Introduction by John W. Hales |
| Song: ‘Go and catch a falling star’ |
| A Valediction Forbidding Mourning |
| Song: ‘Sweetest love, I do not go’ |
| From Verses to Sir Henry Wootton |
| The Will |
