CHILD AND MAIDEN AH, Chloris ! could I now but sit As unconcern'd as when Your infant beauty could beget I little thought the rising fire Your charms in harmless childhood lay Like metals in a mine; Age from no face takes more away Than youth conceal'd in thine. But as your charms insensibly My passion with your beauty grew, Threw a new flaming dart: Each gloried in their wanton part; To make a beauty, she. Sir C. Sedley G LXXXII COUNSEL TO GIRLS ATHER ye rose-buds while ye may, And this same flower that smiles to-day, The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun, The sooner will his race be run, That age is best which is the first, Then be not coy, but use your time; You may for ever tarry. R. Herrick Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind, True, a new mistress now I chase, And with a stronger faith embrace Yet this inconstancy is such I could not love thee, Dear, so much, Colonel Lovelace LXXXIV ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA YOU meaner beauties of the night, You Which poorly satisfy our eyes More by your number than your light, You common people of the skies, Ye violets that first appear, By your pure purple mantles known As if the spring were all your own, Ye curious chanters of the wood That warble forth dame Nature's lays, Thinking your passions understood By your weak accents; what's your praise When Philomel her voice doth raise? So when my Mistress shall be seen In sweetness of her looks and mind, By virtue first, then choice, a Queen, Tell me, if she were not design'd Th' eclipse and glory of her kind? Sir H. Wotton LXXXV TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY D AUGHTER to that good earl, once President Of England's council and her treasury, Who lived in both, unstain'd with gold or fee, And left them both, more in himself content, Till the sad breaking of that parliament At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, Kill'd with report that old man eloquent ; Though later born than to have known the days So well your words his noble virtues praise, LXXXVI THE LOVELINESS OF LOVE is not Beauty I demand, ITA crystal brow, the moon's despair, Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair : Tell me not of your starry eyes, A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks These are but gauds: nay what are lips? And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft That wave hot youth to fields of blood? Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft, Do Greece or Ilium any good? Eyes can with baleful ardour burn; Poison can breath, that erst perfumed; There's many a white hand holds an urn With lovers' hearts to dust consumed. |