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.
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.
Those sweet airs that often slew me
Shall revive me,
Or reprieve me,
And to many deaths renew me.
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 obscured lies, (Dressed in those beams) start forth
And dance before your eyes.
Or else partake my flames
(I care not whether), And so in mutual names
Of Love, burn both together.
Would any one the true cause find
How Love came naked, 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.
Come and let us live, my dear,
Let us love and never fear
What the sourest fathers say:
Brightest Sol that dies to-day
Lives again as blithe to-morrow;
But if we, dark sons of sorrow,
Set, О 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.
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