When with a love none can express,
That mutually happy pair,

Melander and Celinda fair,

The season with their loves did bless.

Walking thus towards a pleasant Grove,
What did, it seem'd, in new delight
The pleasures of the time unite,
To give a triumph to their love,

They stay'd at last, and on the Grass
Reposed so, as o'r his breast

She bow'd her gracious head to rest,
Such a weight as no burden was.

While over eithers compassed waste
Their folded arms were so compos'd,
As if in straitest bonds inclos'd,
They suffer'd for joys they did taste.

Long their fixt eyes to Heaven bent,
Unchanged, they did never move,
As if so great and pure a love
No Glass but it could represent.

When with a sweet, though troubled look,

She first brake silence, saying, Dear friend,
O that our love might take no end,

Or never had beginning took!

I speak not this with a false heart,

(Wherewith his hand she gently strain'd) Or that would change a love maintain'd With so much faith on either part.

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Nay, I protest, though Death with his
Worst Counsel should divide us here,
His terrors could not make me fear,
To come where your lov'd presence is.
Only if loves fire with the breath
Of life be kindled, I doubt,

With our last air 'twill be breath'd out,
And quenched with the cold of death.

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Is it, because we should decline,

And wholly from our thoughts exclude
Objects that may the sense delude,
And study only the Divine?

No sure, for if none can ascend
Ev'n to the visible degree

Of things created, how should we
The invisible comprehend?

Or rather since that Pow'r exprest
His greatness in his works alone,
B'ing here best in his Creatures known,
Why is he not lov'd in them best?

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2026.8

So when from hence we shall be gone,
And be no more, nor you, nor I,

As one anothers mystery,

Each shall be both, yet both but one.

This said, in her up-lifted face,

Her which did that beauty crown,
eyes

Were like two starrs, that having faln down,
Look up again to find their place:

While such a moveless silent

peace

Did seize on their becalmed sense,

One would have thought some influence

Their ravish'd spirits did possess.

Lord Herbert of Cherbury.

Mediocrity in love rejected.

Ive me more Love, or more Disdain ;
The Torrid, or the Frozen Zone

Bring equall ease unto my paine;
The Temperate affords me none:
Either extreme, of Love, or Hate,
Is sweeter than a calme estate.
Give me a storme; if it be Love,
Like Danae in that golden showre
I swim in pleasure; if it prove

Disdain, that Torrent will devour
My Vulture-hopes; and he's possest
Of Heaven, that's but from Hell releast:

Then crown my joyes, or cure my pain;
Give me more Love, or more Disdain.

Thomas Carew.

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