CXXVII TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON When Love with unconfinéd wings The Gods that wanton in the air When flowing cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames, Our careless heads with roses bound, When thirsty grief in wine we steep, When, (like committed linnets), I When I shall voice aloud how good Stone walls do not a prison make, Colonel Lovelace CXXVIII TO LUCASTA, GOING BEYOND THE SEAS If to be absent were to be Away from thee; Or that when I am gone You or I were alone; Then, my Lucasta, might I crave Pity from blustering wind, or swallowing wave. But I'll not sigh one blast or gale Or pay a tear to 'suage The foaming blue-god's rage; For whether he will let me pass Or no, I'm still as happy as I was. Though seas and land betwixt us both, Our faith and troth, Like separated souls, All time and space controls: Above the highest sphere we meet Unseen, unknown, and greet as Angels greet. So then we do anticipate And are alive i' the skies, Can speak like spirits unconfined In Heaven, their earthy bodies left behind. Colonel Lovelace CXXIX ENCOURAGEMENTS TO A LOVER Why so pale and wan, fond lover? Will, if looking well can't move her, Prythee, why so pale ? Why so dull and mute, young sinner? Will, when speaking well can't win her, Prythee, why so mute? Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move, If of herself she will not love, The D-1 take her! Sir J. Suckling CXXX A SUPPLICATION Awake, awake, my Lyre! And tell thy silent master's humble tale Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire: And I so lowly be Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony. Hark, how the strings awake! And, though the moving hand approach not near, Themselves with awful fear A kind of numerous trembling make. Now all thy forces try; Now all thy charms apply; Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye. Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure Is useless here, since thou art only found And she to wound, but not to cure. Too weak too wilt thou prove My passion to remove; Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to Love. Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre! For thou canst never tell my humble tale In sounds that will prevail, Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire; All thy vain mirth lay by, Bid thy strings silent lie, Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die. A. Cowley CXXXI THE MANLY HEART Shall I, wasting in despair, Or make pale my cheeks with care Shall my silly heart be pined If she be not so to me What care I how kind she be? Shall a woman's virtues move 'Cause her fortune seems too high, Thinks what with them he would do What care I how great she be? Great or good, or kind or fair, For if she be not for me, What care I for whom she be? CXXXII MELANCHOLY Hence, all you vain delights, O sweetest Melancholy ! A look that's fasten'd to the ground, Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley; J. Fletcher |