LXXXIII

TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WARS

ELL me not, Sweet, I am unkind

T 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

LXXXIV

ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA

Y

TOU meaner beauties of the night,

Which poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,

You common people of the skies,
What are you, when the Moon shall rise ?

Ye violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known
Like the proud virgins of the year

As if the spring were all your own,
What are you, when the Rose is blown?

Ye curious chanters of the wood

That warble forth dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your passions understood
By your weak accents; what 's your praise

;
When Philomel her voice doth raise?

So when my Mistress shall be seen

In sweetness of her looks and mind, By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,

Tell me, if she were not design’d Th' eclipse and glory of her kind ?

Sir H. Wotton

LXXXV

TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY

AUGHTER to that good earl, once President

Who lived in both, unstain’d with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content,

Till the sad breaking of that parliament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty,
Kill'd with report that old man eloquent ;

Though later born than to have known the days
Wherein your father flourish'd, yet by you,
Madam, methinks I see him living yet ;

So well your words his noble virtues praise,
That all both judge you to relate them true,
And to possess them, honour’d Margaret.

7. Milton

LXXXVI

THE LOVELINESS OF LOVE

I TAs

crystal brow, the moon's despair,

is not I

Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair :

Tell me not of your starry eyes,
Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed :---

A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks
Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours,
A breath that softer music speaks
Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,

These are but gauds : nay what are lips?
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer slips
Full oft he perisheth on them.

And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft That wave hot youth to fields of blood ? Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft, Do Greece or Ilium any good ?

Eyes can with baleful ardour burn; Poison can breath, that erst perfumed ; There's many a white hand holds an urn With lovers' hearts to dust consumed.

For crystal brows there 's nought within ;
They are but empty cells for pride ;
He who the Syren's hair would win
Is mostly strangled in the tide.

Give me, instead of Beauty's bust,
A tender heart, a loyal mind
Which with temptation I would trust,
Yet never link'd with error find,

One in whose gentle bosom I
Could pour my secret heart of woes,
Like the care-burthen'd honey-fly
That hides his murmurs in the rose,

My earthly Comforter ! whose love
So indefeasible might be
That, when my spirit wonn'd above,
Hers could not stay, for sympathy.

Anon.

But a smooth and steadfast mind,

Gentle thoughts, and calm desires, Hearts with equal love combined,

Kindle never-dying fires :

Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.

T. Carew

LXXXVIII

TO DIANEME

WEET, be not proud of those two eyes

S

Nor be you proud, that you can see
All hearts your captives; yours yet free:
Be you not proud of that rich hair
Which wantons with the lovesick air ;
Whenas that ruby which you wear,
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
Will last to be a precious stone
When all your world of beauty 's gone.

R. Herrick

LXXXIX

Godavher

, that wastes her time and me,

, lovely Rose

That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that 's young
And shuns to have her graces spied,

That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired :