It was my Heaven's extremest sphere, A narrow compass! and yet there E. Waller XCVI TO ANTHEA WHO MAY COMMAND HIM ANY THING Bid me to live, and I will live Or bid me love, and I will give A heart as soft, a heart as kind, As in the whole world thou canst find, Bid that heart stay, and it will stay, To honour thy decree : Or bid it languish quite away, Bid me to weep, and I will weep Bid me despair, and I'll despair, Thou art my life, my love, my heart, And hast command of every part, To live and die for thee. R. Herrick XCVII Love not me for comely grace, Anon. XCVIII Not, Celia, that I juster am For I would change each hour, like them, But I am tied to very thee All that in woman is adored Why then should I seek further store, When change itself can give no more, Sir C. Sedley XCIX TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON When Love with unconfinéd wings When flowing cups run swiftly round Our careless heads with roses crown'd, When, linnet-like confinéd, I Enlarged winds, that curl the flood, Stone walls do not a prison make, Colonel Lovelace C TO LUCASTA, ON 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. Though seas and land betwixt us both, Like separated souls, All time and space controls: 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 CI 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? G Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move, If of herself she will not love, The D-1 take her! CII Sir F. Suckling A SUPPLICATION Awake, awake, my Lyre! And tell thy silent master's humble tale 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, A kind of numerous trembling make. 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. 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 |