I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak,—yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,—

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

CXLVI

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Pressed by these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men;
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

"ALEXIS, HERE SHE STAYED"

ALEXIS, here she stayed; among these pines,
Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair;

Here did she spread the treasure of her hair,

More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines.

She set her by these muskèd eglantines,

The happy place the print seems yet to bear;

Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines,

To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend their ear.

A Sonnet of the Moon

1217

Me here she first perceived, and here a morn
Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face;
Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born,
And I first got a pledge of promised grace:

But, ah! what served it to be happy so,

Since passed pleasures double but new woe?
William Drummond [1585-1649]

"WERE I AS BASE AS IS THE LOWLY PLAIN”

WERE I as base as is the lowly plain,

And you, my love, as high as heaven above,

Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble swain,
Ascend to heaven in honor of my love.

Were I as high as heaven above the plain,
And you, my love, as humble and as low
As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
Wheresoe'er you were, with you my love should go.
Were you the earth, dear love, and I the skies,
My love should shine on you, like to the sun,
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes,

Till heaven waxed blind and till the world were done.
Wheresoe'er I am,-below, or else above you,—
Wheresoe'er you are, my heart shall truly love you.
Joshua Sylvester [1563-1618]

A SONNET OF THE MOON

Look how the pale Queen of the silent night
Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her,
And he, as long as she is in his sight,
With his full tide is ready her to honor:
But when the silver wagon of the Moon
Is mounted up so high he cannot follow,
The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan,
And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow.
So you that are the sovereign of my heart,
Have all my joys attending on your will,
My joys low-ebbing when you do depart,
When you return, their tide my heart doth fill.

So as you come, and as you do depart,

Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart.
Charles Best [fl. 1602]

TO MARY UNWIN

MARY! I want a lyre with other strings,

Such aid from Heaven as some have feigned they drew,

An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new

And undebased by praise of meaner things;

That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings,

I

may record thy worth with honor due,

In verse as musical as thou art true,

And that immortalizes whom it sings:

But thou hast little need. There is a Book

By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,

A chronicle of actions just and bright:

There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine;
And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.
William Cowper [1731–1800]

"WHY ART THOU SILENT”

WHY art thou silent? Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant,
Bound to thy service with unceasing care-
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
For naught but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak!-though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,

Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow

'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine

Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850]

WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one?

When in the light the spirits of mine eyes

Before thy face, their altar, solemnize

The worship of that Love through thee made known? Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)

Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies, soul only sees thy soul its own?

And my

O love, my love! if I no more should see

Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,

Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—

How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

V

HEART'S HOPE

By what word's power, the key of paths untrod,
Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore,

Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore
Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?

For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,

Lady, I fain would tell how evermore

Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor

Thee from myself, neither our love from God.
Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I
Draw from one loving heart such evidence

As to all hearts all things shall signify;
Tender as dawn's first lull-fire, and intense
As instantaneous penetrating sense,

In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.

XV

THE BIRTH-BOND

HAVE you not noted, in some family

Where two were born of a first marriage-bed,

How still they own their gracious bond, though fed
And nursed on the forgotten breast and knee?—
How to their father's children they shall be

In act and thought of one goodwill; but each
Shall for the other have, in silence speech,
And in a word complete community?

Even so, when first I saw you, seemed it, love,
That among souls allied to mine was yet
One nearer kindred than life hinted of.

O born with me somewhere that men forget,
And though in years of sight and sound unmet,
Known for my soul's birth-partner well enough!

XIX

SILENT NOON

YOUR hands lie open in the long fresh grass,

The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:—
So this winged hour is dropped to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.

XXVI

MID-RAPTURE

THOU lovely and beloved, thou my love;

Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes, Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise,

Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above