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Delight of lust is gross and brief
  And weariness treads on desire.
Not beasts are we, to rush on it,
  Love sickens there, and dies on the fire.
But in eternal holiday,
Thus, thus, lie still and kiss the hours away.
No weariness is here, no shamefastness,
Here is, was, shall be, all delightsomeness.
And here no end shall be,
But a beginning everlastingly.

--Petronius Arbiter, first century CE.  Translation: Helen Waddell, 1929. 

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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.  These days only 
the rich get given more.

--Martial's Epigrams, Book 5, 81 CE.  Translation: James Michie, 1972. 

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A man lives long who lives a hundred years;
Yet half is sleep, and half the rest again
Old age and childhood.  For the rest, a man
Lives close companion to disease and tears,
Losing his love, working for other men.
Where can joy find a space in this short span?

--Bhartrhari, Epigram number 200, first millenium CE, translated by John
Brough for Penguin Classics 1968. 

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My Friend, the Things That Do Attain

My friend, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:
The riches left, not got with pain;
The fruitful ground; the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No charge of rule, nor governance;
Without disease, the healthy life;
The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no dainty fare;
Wisdom joined with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress;

The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night;
Content thyself with thine estate,
Neither wish death, nor fear his might.

--Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, 1547

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Oh Fortune, thy wresting wavering state
Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit,
Whose witness this present prison late
Could bear, where once was joy's loan quit.
Thou causedst the guilty to be loosed
From bands where innocents were inclosed,
And caused the guiltless to be reserved,
And freed those that death had well deserved.
But all herein can be nothing wrought,
So God send to my foes all they have thought.   

--Elizabeth Tudor, Written On a Wall At Woodstock, 1554-55

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Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind

  Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
  Thou art not so unkind
    As man's ingratitude;
  Thy tooth is not so keen,
  Because thou art not seen,
    Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
  Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
    This life is most jolly.

  Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
  That dost not bite so nigh
    As benefits forgot:
  Though thou the waters warp,
  Thy sting is not so sharp
    As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, . . .

--William Shakespeare, 1599

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When thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arriv'd, a new admired guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finish'd love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;
Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,
Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake:
When thou hast told these honours done to thee,
Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me.

--Thomas Campion, 1601

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To the Sour Reader

If thou dislik'st the piece thou light'st on first,
Think of all that I have writ the worst;
But if thou read'st my book unto the end,
And still does this and that verse reprehend,
O perverse man! If all disgustful be,
The extreme scab take thee and thine, for me.

--Robert Herrick, 1648

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Three things there be that prosper up apace
And flourish, whilst they grow asunder far,
But on a day, they meet all in one place,
And when they meet, they one another mar;
 And they be these: the wood, the weed, the wag.
The wood is that which makes the gallow tree;
The weed is that which strings the hangman's bag;
The wag, my pretty knave, betokeneth thee.
Mark well, dear boy, whilst these assemble not,
Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild,
But when they meet, it makes the timber rot;
It frets the halter, and it chokes the child.
  Then bless thee, and beware, and let us pray
  We part not with thee at this meeting day.

--Sir Walter Raleigh, to his son, before his execution under James I, 1618

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You charm'd me not with that fair face
  Though it was all divine:
To be another's is the grace,
  That makes me wish you mine.
The Gods and Fortune take their part
  Who like young monarchs fight;
And boldly dare invade that heart
  Which is another's right.
First mad with hope we undertake
  To pull up every bar;
But once possess'd, we faintly make
  A dull defensive war.
Now every friend is turn'd a foe
  In hope to get our store:
And passion makes us cowards grow,
  Which made us brave before.

--John Dryden, 1671

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A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

--William Blake, 1794

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Rose Aylmer

Ah what avails the sceptered race,
  Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
  Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
  May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
  I consecrate to thee.

--Walter Savage Landor, 1806

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Ozymandius

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattererd visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozimandius, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains.  Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

--Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1818

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Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1923

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Unfortunate Coincidence

By the time you swear you're his,
  Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
  Infinite, undying--
Lady, make a note of this:
  One of you is lying.

--Dorothy Parker, 1926

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Oh, when I was in love with you,
	Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
	How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
	And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
	Am quite myself again.

--A. E. Housman, 1936

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I'll get the wrong idea
If you're kind to me
I'll start to make things up in my head
I'll think you'll want me
I'll hurt myself trying to please you
It won't be real
It will all be in my head
I won't be able to stop lying to myself
I will cut myself to pieces again and again
I won't feel it
You can watch 

--Henry Rollins, 1991