124 TO ANTHEA WHO MAY COMMAND HIM ANY THING.

TO ANTHEA, WHO MAY COMMAND HIM
ANY THING.

BID me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be:

Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.

A heart as soft, a heart as kind,

A heart as sound and free

As in the whole world thou canst find—
That heart I'll give to thee.

Bid that heart stay, and it will stay,

To honour thy decree:

Or bid it languish quite away,
And 't shall do so for thee.

Bid me to weep, and I will weep
While I have eyes to see:
And having none, yet I will keep
A heart to weep for thee.

Bid me despair, and I'll despair
Under that cypress tree:
Or bid me die, and I will dare
E'en Death, to die for thee.

Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me;

And hast command of every part,

To live and die for thee.

R. Herrick.

LOVE'S UNSELFISHNESS.

125

LOVE'S UNSELFISHNESS.

PHILLIS, men say that all my vows
Are to thy fortune paid:
Alas! my heart he little knows,
Who thinks my love a trade.

Were I of all these woods the lord,
One berry from thy hand
More real pleasure would afford
Than all my large command.

My humble love has learned to live
On what the nicest maid,
Without a conscious blush, may give
Beneath the myrtle shade.

Sir Charles Sedley.

Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here to-day;

He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way:

Then fear not me,

But believe that I shall make
Hastier journeys, since I take

More wings and spurs than he.

3.

O how feeble is man's pow'r!

That, if good fortune fall,

Cannot add another hour,

Nor a lost hour recall;

But come bad chance,

And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length
Itself o'er us to advance.

TO HIS LOVE: ON GOING A JOURNEY.

4.

When thou sigh'st thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,

My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be

That thou lov'st me as thou say'st
If in thine my life thou waste,

Which art the life of me.

5.

Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill;

Destiny may take thy part
And may thy fears fulfill;
But think that we

Are but laid aside to sleep.
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be!

Dr. John Donne.

127

128

TO LUCASTA (ON GOING TO THE WARS).

TO LUCASTA (ON GOING TO THE WARS).

TELL me not, sweet, I am unkind,—
That from the nunnery

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.