John Fletcher [1579-1625]
ADVICE TO A LOVER
The sea hath many thousand sands, The sun hath motes as many; The sky is full of stars, and Love As full of woes as any: Believe me, that do know the elf, And make no trial by thyself!
It is in truth a pretty toy For babes to play withal: But O, the honies of our youth Are oft our age's gall: Self-proof in time will make thee know He was a prophet told thee so:
A prophet that, Cassandra-like, Tells truth without belief; For headstrong Youth will run his race, Although his goal be grief: - Love's Martyr, when his heat is past, Proves Care's Confessor at the last.
Unknown
LOVE'S HOROSCOPE
Love, brave Virtue's younger brother, Erst hath made my heart a mother, She consults the anxious spheres, To calculate her young son's years; She asks if sad or saving powers Gave omen to his infant hours; She asks each star that then stood by If poor Love shall live or die.
Ah, my heart! is that the way? Are these the beams that rule thy day? Thou know'st a face in whose each look Beauty lays ope Love's fortune-book, On whose fair revolutions wait The obsequious motions of Love's fate. Ah, my heart! her eyes and she Have taught thee new astrology. Howe'er Love's native hours were set, Whatever starry synod met, 'Tis in the mercy of her eye, If poor Love shall live or die.
If those sharp rays, putting on Points of death, bid Love be gone; - Though the heavens in council sate To crown an uncontrolled fate; Though their best aspects twined upon The kindest constellation, Cast amorous glances on its birth, And whispered the confederate earth To pave his paths with all the good That warms the bed of youth and blood: - Love has no plea against her eye; Beauty frowns, and Love must die.
But if her milder influence move, And gild the hopes of humble Love; - Though heaven's inauspicious eye Lay black on Love's nativity; Though every diamond in Jove's crown Fixed his forehead to a frown; - Her eye a strong appeal can give, Beauty smiles, and Love shall live.
O, if Love shall live, O where, But in her eye, or in her ear, In her breast, or in her breath, Shall I hide poor Love from death? For in the life aught else can give, Love shall die, although he live.
Or, if Love shall die, O where, But in her eye, or in her ear, In her breath, or in her breast, Shall I build his funeral nest? While Love shall thus entombed lie, Love shall live, although he die!
Richard Crashaw [1613?-1649]
"AH, HOW SWEET IT IS TO LOVE!" From "Tyrannic Love"
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: Even the tears they shed alone Cure, like trickling balm, their smart: Lovers, when they lose their breath, Bleed away in easy death.
Love and Time with reverence use, Treat them like a parting friend; Nor the golden gifts refuse Which in youth sincere they send: For each year their price is more, And they less simple than before.
Love, like spring-tides full and high, Swells in every youthful vein; But each tide does less supply, Till they quite shrink in again: If a flow in age appear, 'Tis but rain, and runs not clear.
John Dryden [1631-1700]
SONG
Love still has something of the sea, From whence his Mother rose; No time his slaves from doubt can free, Nor give their thoughts repose.
They are becalmed in clearest days, And in rough weather tossed; They wither under cold delays, Or are in tempests lost.
One while they seem to touch the port, Then straight into the main Some angry wind, in cruel sport, The vessel drives again.
At first Disdain and Pride they fear, Which if they chance to 'scape, Rivals and Falsehood soon appear, In a more dreadful shape.
By such degrees to joy they come, And are so long withstood, So slowly they receive the sum, It hardly does them good.
'Tis cruel to prolong a pain; And to defer a joy, Believe me, gentle Celemene, Offends the winged boy.
An hundred thousand oaths your fears, Perhaps, would not remove; And if I gazed a thousand years, I could no deeper love.
Charles Sedley [1639?-1710]
THE VINE From "Sunday Up the River"
The wine of Love is music, And the feast of Love is song: And when Love sits down to the banquet, Love sits long:
Sits long and arises drunken, But not with the feast and the wine; He reeleth with his own heart, That great, rich Vine.
James Thomson [1834-1882]
SONG
Fain would I change that note To which fond love hath charmed me, Long, long to sing by rote, Fancying that that harmed me: Yet when this thought doth come, - Love is the perfect sum Of all delight. I have no other choice Either for pen or voice To sing or write.
O love, they wrong thee much That say thy sweet is bitter When thy rich fruit is such As nothing can be sweeter. Fair house of joy and bliss Where truest pleasure is, I do adore thee: I know thee what thou art, I serve thee with my heart, And fall before thee.
Unknown
CUPID STUNG
Cupid once upon a bed Of roses laid his weary head; Luckless urchin, not to see Within the leaves a slumbering bee. The bee awaked - with anger wild The bee awaked, and stung the child. Loud and piteous are his cries; To Venus quick he runs, he flies; "Oh Mother! I am wounded through - I die with pain - in sooth I do! Stung by some little angry thing, Some serpent on a tiny wing - A bee it was - for once, I know, I heard a rustic call it so." Thus he spoke, and she the while Heard him with a soothing smile; Then said, "My infant, if so much Thou feel the little wild bee's touch, How must the heart, ah, Cupid! be, The hapless heart that's stung by thee!"
Thomas Moore [1779-1852]
CUPID DROWNED
T'other day, as I was twining Roses, for a crown to dine in, What, of all things, 'mid the heap, Should I light on, fast asleep, But the little desperate elf, The tiny traitor, Love, himself! By the wings I picked him up Like a bee, and in a cup Of my wine I plunged and sank him, Then what d'ye think I did? - I drank him. Faith, I thought him dead. Not he! There he lives with ten-fold glee; And now this moment with his wings I feel him tickling my heart-strings.
Leigh Hunt [1784-1859]
SONG From "The Heir of Vironi"
Oh! say not woman's love is bought With vain and empty treasure. Oh! say not woman's heart is caught By every idle pleasure. When first her gentle bosom knows Love's flame, it wanders never; Deep in her heart the passion glows, She loves, and loves for ever.
Oh! say not woman's false as fair, That, like the bee, she ranges, Still seeking flowers more sweet and rare, As fickle fancy changes. Ah no! the love that first can warm Will leave her bosom never; No second passion e'er can charm, She loves, and loves for ever.
Isaac Pocock [1782-1835]
"IN THE DAYS OF OLD" From "Crotchet Castle"
In the days of old Lovers felt true passion, Deeming years of sorrow By a smile repaid: Now the charms of gold, Spells of pride and fashion, Bid them say Good-morrow To the best-loved Maid.
Through the forests wild, O'er the mountains lonely, They were never weary Honor to pursue: If the damsel smiled Once in seven years only, All their wanderings dreary Ample guerdon knew.
Now one day's caprice Weighs down years of smiling, Youthful hearts are rovers, Love is bought and sold. Fortune's gifts may cease, Love is less beguiling: Wiser were the lovers In the days of old.
Thomas Love Peacock [1785-1866]
SONG
How delicious is the winning Of a kiss at Love's beginning, When two mutual hearts are sighing For the knot there's no untying!
Yet remember, 'midst your wooing, Love has bliss, but Love has ruing; Other smiles may make you fickle, Tears for other charms may trickle.
Love he comes, and Love he tarries, Just as fate or fancy carries; Longest stays, when sorest chidden; Laughs and flies, when pressed and bidden.
Bind the sea to slumber stilly, Bind its odor to the lily, Bind the aspen ne'er to quiver, Then bind Love to last forever!
Love's a fire that needs renewal Of fresh beauty for its fuel: Love's wing moults when caged and captured, Only free, he soars enraptured.
Can you keep the bee from ranging, Or the ringdove's neck from changing? No! nor fettered Love from dying In the knot there's no untying.
Thomas Campbell [1777-1844]
STANZAS
Could Love for ever Run like a river, And Time's endeavor Be tried in vain - No other pleasure With this could measure, And like a treasure We'd hug the chain. But since our sighing Ends not in dying, And, formed for flying, Love plumes his wing; Then for this reason Let's love a season; But let that season Be only Spring.
When lovers parted Feel broken-hearted, And, all hopes thwarted, Expect to die; A few years older, Ah! how much colder They might behold her For whom they sigh! When linked together, In every weather, They pluck Love's feather From out his wing - He'll stay for ever, But sadly shiver Without his plumage, When past the Spring.
Like Chiefs of Faction, His life is action - A formal paction That curbs his reign, Obscures his glory, Despot no more, he Such territory Quits with disdain. Still, still advancing, With banners glancing, His power enhancing, He must move on - Repose but cloys him, Retreat destroys him, Love brooks not a Degraded throne.