Cautious, she knew never yet
What a wanton courtship meant ;
Nor speaks loud to boast her wit,
In her silence eloquent.
Of herself survey she takes,
But 'tween men no difference makes.
She her throne makes reason climb,
While wild passions captive lie;
And each article of time
Her pure thoughts to heaven fly;
All her vows religious be,
And her love she vows to me.
NOBLEST Charis, you that are
Both my fortune and my star!
And do govern more my blood
Than the various moon the flood!
Hear, what late discourse of you
Love and I have had; and true.
'Mongst my muses finding me
Where he chanced your name to see
Set, and to this softer strain;
Sure," said he, "if I have brain
This, here sung, can be no other
By description, but my mother!
So hath Homer praised her hair,
So Anacreon drawn the air
Of her face, and made to rise
Just about her sparkling eyes
Both her brows, bent like my bow;
By her looks I do her know,
Which you call my
shafts. And see!
Such my mother's blushes be,
As the bath your verse discloses
In her cheeks, of milk and roses;
Such as oft I wanton in :
And, above her even chin,
Have you placed the bank of kisses,
Where, you say, men gather blisses,
Ripened with a breath more sweet
Than when flowers and west winds meet.
Nay, her white and polished neck
With the lace that doth it deck
Is my mother's! Hearts of slain
Lovers made into a chain!
And between each rising breast
Lies the valley, called my nest,
Where I sit and proyne my wings
After flight, and put new stings
To my shafts! Her very name
With my mother's is the same!"
I confess all, I replied,
And the glass hangs by her side,
And the girdle 'bout her waist,
All is Venus, save unchaste.
But, alas! thou seest the least
Of her good, who is the best
Of her sex ; but could'st thou, Love,
Call to mind the forms that strove
For the apple, and those three
Make in one, the same were she;
For this beauty yet doth hide
Something more than thou hast spied.
Outward grace weak love beguiles;
She is Venus when she smiles,
But she's Juno when she walks,
And Minerva when she talks.
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 riband bound,
Take all the rest the Sun goes round.
I WAS foretold, your rebel sex
Nor love nor pity knew,
And with what scorn you use to vex
Poor hearts that humbly sue;
Yet I believed, to crown our pain,
Could we the fortress win,
The happy lover sure should gain
A paradise within;
I thought Love's plagues like dragons sate
Only to fright us at the gate.
But I did enter, and enjoy
What happy lovers prove;
For I could kiss, and sport, and toy,
And taste those sweets of love,
Which, had they but a lasting state,
Or if in Celia's breast
The force of love might not abate,
Jove were too mean a guest.
But now her breach of faith far more
Afflicts, than did her scorn before.
Hard fate! to have been once possest,
As victor of a heart
Achieved with labour and unrest,
And then forced to depart.
If the stout foe will not resign
When I besiege a town,
I lose but what was never mine;
But he that is cast down
From enjoyed beauty, feels a woe
Only deposed kings can know.
SO SWEET IS THY DISCOURSE TO ME
So sweet is thy discourse to me,
And so delightful is thy sight,
As I taste nothing right but thee:
O why invented Nature light?
Was it alone for Beauty's sake
That her graced words might better take?
No more can I old joys recall,
They now to me become unknown,
Not seeming to have been at all :
Alas, how soon is this Love grown
To such a spreading height in me
As with it all must shadowed be!
MARGARITA first possest,
If I remember well, my breast,
Margarita first of all;
But when awhile the wanton maid
With my restless heart had played,
Martha took the flying ball.
Martha soon did it resign
To the beauteous Catharine;
Beauteous Catharine gave place
(Though loth and angry she to part
With the possession of my heart)
To Eliza's conquering face.
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