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PART V

LOVE

WAKE NOW, MY LOVE

WAKE now, my Love, awake! for it is time:
The rosy Morne long since left Tithons bed,
All ready to her silver coche to clyme,

And Phoebus gins to shew his glorious hed.

Hark! how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr laies, And carroll of Love's praise:

The merry larke hir mattins sings aloft;

The thrush replyes; the mavis descant playes;

The ouzell shrills; the ruddock warbles soft;

So goodly all agree, with sweet consent,

To this dayes meriment.

Ah! my deere Love, why doe ye sleepe thus long,
When meeter were that ye should now awake,
T' awayt the comming of your joyous make,
And hearken to the birds love-learned song,
The deawy leaves among?

For they of joy and pleasance to you sing,

That all the woods them answer, and theyr eccho ring. EDMUND SPENSER (Epithalamion).

TRUE LOVE

LET me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove;

O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

MY TRUE-LOVE HATH MY HEART

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one to the other given ;
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
There never was a better bargain driven :
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.
His heart in me keeps him and me in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;

I cherish his because in me it bides:
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

WHEN IN DISGRACE WITH FORTUNE
AND MEN'S EYES

WHEN, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least ;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate:
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

DRINK TO ME ONLY WITH THINE EYES

DRINK to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there

It could not wither'd be ;

But thou thereon didst only breathe

And sent'st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself but thee!

SONG

AT setting day and rising morn,
With soul that still shall love thee,
I'll ask of Heaven thy safe return,
With all that can improve thee.
I'll visit aft the birken bush

BEN JONSON.

Where first thou kindly told me
Sweet tales of love, and hid thy blush,
Whilst round thou didst infold me.
To all our haunts I will repair,

By greenwood shaw or fountain;
Or where the summer day I'd share
With thee upon yon mountain :
There will I tell the trees and flowers,
From thoughts unfeign'd and tender;
By vows you're mine, by love is yours
A heart which cannot wander.

A GIRDLE

ALLAN RAMSAY.

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 hath 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 ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round!

EDMUND WALLER.

THE SHEPHERD'S LOVE .

HERE she was wont to go! and here! and here!
Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow.
The world may find the Spring by following her
For other print her airy steps ne'er left:
Her treading would not bend a blade of grass,

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Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk!
But like the soft west-wind she shot along,
And where she went the flowers took thickest root,
As she had sowed them with her odorous foot!

BEN JONSON.

TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON
WHEN love with unconfinèd wings

Hovers within my gates,

And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at my grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fetter'd with her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups pass swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,

Our careless heads with roses crown'd,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,

Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When, linnet-like confinèd, I
With shriller note shall sing

The mercy, sweetness, majesty,
And glories of my king;

When I shall voice aloud how good

He is, how great should be,

The enlarged winds, that curl the flood,

Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.

RICHARD LOVELACE.

A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS

SEE the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth !

Each that draws is a swan or a dove,

And well the car Love guideth.

As she goes all hearts do duty
Unto her beauty;

And, enamour'd, do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,

That they still were to run by her side,

Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
Than words that soothe her!

And from her arch'd brows such a grace
Sheds itself through the face,

As alone there triumphs to the life

All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow

Before rude hands have touch'd it?
Have you mark'd but the fall o' the snow
Before the soil hath smutch'd it ?

Have you felt the wool of beaver ?
Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier?
Or the nard in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!

BEN JONSON.

CUPID AND CAMPASPE

CUPID and my Campaspe play'd

At cards for kisses; Cupid paid.
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves and team of sparrows;
Loses them too, and down he throws
The coral of his lip — the rose

Growing on 's cheek, but none knows how;
With these the crystal on his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin ;
All these did my Campaspe win ;
At last he set her both his eyes,
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love, hath she done this to thee?
What shall, alas, become of me?

JOHN LYLY.

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