1645.

ON A GIRDLE

THAT which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown,
His arms might do what this has done.

It was my Heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer:
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.

A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that 's fair!
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round!

4

8

12

Edmund Waller.

HEAR, YE LADIES

From Valentinian

HEAR, ye ladies that despise

What the mighty Love has done;

Fear examples and be wise:

Fair Callisto was a nun;

Disdain Returned

Leda, sailing on the stream
To deceive the hopes of man,
Love accounting but a dream,
Doted on a silver swan;

Danaë, in a brazen tower,

Where no love was, loved a shower.

Hear, ye ladies that are coy,

What the mighty Love can do;

Fear the fierceness of the boy:

The chaste Moon he makes to woo;

Vesta, kindling holy fires,

Circled round about with spies, Never dreaming loose desires, Doting at the altar dies;

Ilion, in a short hour, higher

He can build, and once more fire.

1647.

10

20

John Fletcher.

DISDAIN RETURNED

He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from starlike eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and steadfast mind,
Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,

1632.

Hearts with equal love combined,

Kindle never-dying fires:-
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.

...

12

Thomas Carew.

1640.

SONG

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty's orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more where those stars light
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become as in their sphere.

Ask me no more if east or west

The Phoenix builds her spicy nest;

For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.

Thomas Carew.

4

12

16

20

TO HIS INCONSTANT MISTRESS

WHEN thou, poor Excommunicate

From all the joys of Love, shalt see
The full reward and glorious fate

Which my strong faith shall purchase me,
Then curse thine own inconstancy!

A fairer hand than thine shall cure

That heart which thy false oaths did wound;

And to my soul a soul more pure

Than thine shall by Love's hand be bound,
And both with equal glory crown'd.

Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain
To Love, as I did once to thee;
When all thy tears shall be as vain

As mine were then: for thou shalt be
Damn'd for thy false apostasy.

1640.

ΙΟ

15

Thomas Carew.

ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA

You 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? 5

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?

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?

So when my Mistress shall be seen

In form and beauty mind,

By virtue first, then choice, a Queen, Tell me, if she were not design'd The eclipse and glory of her kind? 1620? 1624.

ΙΟ

15

20

Sir Henry Wotton.

GO, LOVELY ROSE

Go, lovely Rose

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be. 5

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That hadst thou sprung