With wanton wing, now here, now there,
'Bout men and women; nor will spare
Till at length he perching rest,

In the closet of their breast.
His weapon is a little bow,

Yet such an one as (Jove knows how)
Ne'er suffer'd yet his little arrow

Of Heaven's high'st arches to fall narrow.
The gold that on his quiver smiles,
Deceives men's fears with flattering wiles:
But O! (too well my wounds can tell)
With bitter shafts 'tis sauced too well.
He is all cruel, cruel all;

His torch imperious, though but small,
Makes the sun, of flames the sire,
Worse than sun-burnt in his fire.
Wheresoe'er you chance to find him,
Seize him, bring him-but first bind him,
Pity not him, but fear thyself;

Though thou see the crafty elf

Tell down his silver drops unto thee:
They're counterfeit, and will undo thee.
With baited smiles if he display

His fawning cheeks, look not that way.
If he offer sugar'd kisses,

Start, and say, the serpent hisses.
Draw him, drag him, though he pray,
Woo, entreat, and crying say,

Prithee, sweet, now let me go,

Here's my quiver, shafts, and bow,
I'll give thee all, take all; take heed

Lest his kindness make thee bleed.

Whate'er it be Love offers, still presume

That though it shines, 'tis fire, and will consume.

A SONG

(Out of the Italian)

To thy lover
Dear, discover

That sweet blush of thine that shameth (When those roses It discloses)

All the flowers that Nature nameth.

In free air

Flow thy hair;

That no more Summer's best dresses
Be beholden

For their golden

Locks to Phoebus' flaming tresses.

O deliver

Love his quiver;

From thy eyes he shoots his arrows: Where Apollo

Cannot follow :

Feather'd with his mother's sparrows.

O envy not

(That we die not)

Those dear lips whose door encloses
All the Graces

In their places,

Brother pearls, and sister roses,

From these treasures

Of ripe pleasures

One bright smile to clear the weather.

Earth and Heaven
Thus made even,

Both will be good friends together.

The air does woo thee,

Winds cling to thee;

Might a word once fly from out thee, Storm and thunder

Would sit under,

And keep silence round about thee.

But if Nature's

Common creatures

So dear glories dare not borrow;
Yet thy beauty
Owes a duty

To my loving, lingering sorrow.

When to end me

Death shall send me

All his terrors to affright me:
Thine eyes' Graces

Gild their faces,

And those terrors shall delight me.

When my dying

Life is flying,

Those sweet airs that often slew me

Shall revive me,

Or reprieve me,

And to many deaths renew me.

(Out of the Italian)

LOVE now no fire hath left him,
We two betwixt us have divided it.
Your eyes the light hath reft him,

The heat commanding in my heart doth sit.
O that poor Love be not for ever spoiled,
Let my heat to your light be reconciled.

So shall these flames, whose worth
Now all obscurèd lies,

(Dressed in those beams) start forth
And dance before your eyes.

Or else partake my flames (I care not whither), And so in mutual names

Of Love, burn both together.

(Out of the Italian)

WOULD any one the true cause find
How Love came nak't, a boy, and blind?
'Tis this listening one day too long
To th' Syrens in my mistress' song,
The ecstasy of a delight

So much o'er-mastering all his might,
To that one sense made all else thrall,

And so he lost his clothes, eyes, heart, and

all.

(Out of Catullus 1)

say:

COME and let us live, my dear,
Let us love and never fear
What the sourest fathers
Brightest Sol that dies to-day
Lives again as blithe to-morrow;
But if we, dark sons of sorrow,
Set, O then how long a Night
Shuts the eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell

A thousand, and a hundred score,
An hundred and a thousand more,
Till another thousand smother
That, and that wipe off another.
Thus at last, when we have numbered
Many a thousand, many a hundred,
We'll confound the reckoning quite,
And lose ourselves in wild delight:
While our joys so multiply
As shall mock the envious eye.

EPIGRAMS

UPON FORD'S Two TRAGEDIES,

"LOVE'S SACRifice," and "THE BROKEN HEART"

THOU

HOU cheat'st us, Ford; mak'st one seem two by art:

What is Love's Sacrifice but The Broken Heart?

1 Carm. v.