Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

CHILD AND MAIDEN

AH, Chloris ! could I now but sit

As unconcern'd as when

Your infant beauty could beget
No happiness or pain!
When I the dawn used to admire,
And praised the coming day,

I little thought the rising fire
Would take my rest away.

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
To their perfection prest,
So love as unperceived did fly,
And center'd in my breast.

My passion with your beauty grew,
While Cupid at my heart
Still as his mother favour'd you

Threw a new flaming dart:

Each gloried in their wanton part;
To make a lover, he
Employ'd the utmost of his art

To make a beauty, she.

Sir C. Sedley

G

LXXXII

COUNSEL TO GIRLS

ATHER ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a getting

The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry :
For having lost but once your prime,

You may for ever tarry.

R. Herrick

[blocks in formation]

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

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,
What are you, when the Moon shall rise?

Ye violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known
Like the proud virgins of the year

As if the spring were all your own,
What are you, when the Rose is blown?

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
Broke him, as that dishonest victory

At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty,

Kill'd with report that old man eloquent ;

Though later born than to have known the days
Wherein your father flourish'd, yet by you,
Madam, methinks I see him living yet;

So well your words his noble virtues praise,
That all both judge you to relate them true,
And to possess them, honour'd Margaret.
J. Milton

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,
Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed:

[ocr errors]

A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks
Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours,
A breath that softer music speaks
Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,

These are but gauds: nay what are lips?
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer slips
Full oft he perisheth on them.

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.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »