Ye blushing virgins happy are
In the chaste nunnery of her breasts,
For he ’d profane so chaste a fair,
Who e’er should call them Cupid’s nests.
Transplanted thus how bright ye grow,
How rich a perfume do ye yield!
In some close garden cowslips so
Are sweeter than i’ th’ open field.
In those white cloisters live secure...
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...
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...
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.
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.
...
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flowes
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free,
O how that glittering taketh me!
From “Tyrannic Love,” Act IV. Sc. 1.
AH, how sweet it is to love!
Ah, how gay is young desire!
And what pleasing pains we prove
When we first approach love’s fire!
Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.
Sighs which are from lovers blown
Do but gently heave the heart:
E’en the tears they shed...
Welcome, welcome, do I sing,
Far more welcome than the spring;
He that parteth from you never
Shall enjoy a spring forever.
Love, that to the voice is near,
Breaking from your ivory pale,
Need not walk abroad to hear
The delightful nightingale.
Welcome, welcome, then I sing, etc.
Love, that...
Love still has something of the sea,
From whence his Mother rose;
No time his slaves from love can free,
Nor give their thoughts repose.
They are becalmed in clearest days,
And in rough weather tost;
They wither under cold delays,
Or are in tempests lost.
One while they seem to touch the port,
Then straight...
Whoe’er she be,
That not impossible She
That shall command my heart and me:
Where’er she lie,
Locked up from mortal eye
In shady leaves of destiny:
Till that ripe birth
Of studied Fate stand forth,
And teach her fair steps tread our earth;
Till that divine
Idea take a shrine
Of crystal flesh, through...
Shall I tell you whom I love?
Hearken then awhile to me;
And if such a woman move
As I now shall versify,
Be assured ’t is she or none,
That I love, and love alone.
Nature did her so much right
As she scorns the help of art.
In as many virtues dight
As e’er yet embraced a heart.
So much good so truly...
