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GIVE ME MORE LOVE OR MORE
DISDAIN.

GIVE me more love or more disdain ;
The torrid or the frozen zone
Brings equal ease unto my pain;

The temperate affords me none;
Either extreme, of love or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.

Give me a storm; if it be love,

Like Danaë in a golden shower, I swim in pleasure; if it prove

Disdain, that torrent will devour My vulture hopes; and he's possessed Of heaven that's but from hell released; Then crown my joys, or cure my pain; Give me more love or more disdain.

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him :

He'll make a proper man: The best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall;
His leg is but so so; and yet 't is well:
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mixed in his cheek; 't was just the difference

Betwixt the constant red, and mingled damask. There be some women, Silvius, had they marked

him

In parcels, as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him: but, for my part,

I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him:

For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black;
And, now I am remembered, scorned at me :
I marvel, why I answered not again :
But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE SHEPHERD'S RESOLUTION.

SHALL I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care
'Cause another's rosy are?

Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flowery meads in May,
If she be not so to me,

What care I how fair she be?

Shall my foolish heart be pined
'Cause I see a woman kind?
Or a well-disposéd nature
Joinéd with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder than
The turtle-dove or pelican,

If she be not so to me,

What care I how kind she be?

Shall a woman's virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or, her well deservings known,
Make me quite forget mine own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may merit name of best,
If she be not such to me,
What care I how good she be?

'Cause her fortune seems too high,
Shall I play the fool and die?
Those that bear a noble mind
Where they want of riches find,

Think what with them they would do
That without them dare to woo;
And unless that mind I see,
What care I how great she be?

Great, or good, or kind, or fair,
I will ne'er the more despair :
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve.
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;

For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?
GEORGE WITHER.

LET NOT WOMAN E'ER COMPLAIN.

LET not woman e'er complain

Of inconstancy in love;

Let not woman e'er complain

Fickle man is apt to rove; Look abroad through Nature's range, Nature's mighty law is change; Ladies, would it not be strange

Man should then a monster prove?

Mark the winds, and mark the skies;
Ocean's ebb and ocean's flow;
Sun and moon but set to rise,
Round and round the seasons go.

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LOVE in my bosom like a bee,
Doth suck his sweet;

Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet;

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amidst my tender breast,
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest :

Ah! wanton, will you?

And if I sleep, then pierceth he
With pretty slight,

And makes his pillow of my knee,
The livelong night;

Strike I the lute, he tunes the string,
He music plays, if I but sing:
He lends me every lovely thing,
Yet cruel, he my heart doth sting:
Ah! wanton, will you?

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What, of all things, midst the heap,
Should I light on, fast asleep,
But the little desperate elf,
The tiny traitor, - Love himself!
By the wings I pinched him up
Like a bee, and in a cup

Of my wine I plunged and sank him;

And what d' ye think I did?—I drank him!
Faith, I thought him dead. Not he!
There he lives with tenfold glee;
And now this moment, with his wings
I feel him tickling my heart-strings.

LOVE AND TIME.

LEIGH HUNT.

Two pilgrims from the distant plain
Come quickly o'er the mossy ground.
One is a boy, with locks of gold

Thick curling round his face so fair;
The other pilgrim, stern and old,
Has snowy beard and silver hair.
The youth with many a merry trick
Goes singing on his careless way;
His old companion walks as quick,

But speaks no word by night or day.
Where'er the old man treads, the grass
Fast fadeth with a certain doom;
But where the beauteous boy doth pass
Unnumbered flowers are seen to bloom.
And thus before the sage, the boy
Trips lightly o'er the blooming lands,
And proudly bears a pretty toy,

A crystal glass with diamond sands. A smile o'er any brow would pass To see him frolic in the sun, To see him shake the crystal glass, And make the sands more quickly run.

And now they leap the streamlet o'er, A silver thread so white and thin, And now they reach the open door, And now they lightly enter in :

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