Aн, how sweet it is to love! Ah, how gay is young desire ! Sighs which are from lovers blown Do but gently heave the heart: E'en the tears they shed alone Cure, like trickling balm, their smart. Love and Time with reverence use, Which in youth sincere they send: Love, like spring-tides full and high, Till they quite shrink in again. "T is but rain, and runs not clear. THE AGE OF WISDOM. Ho! pretty page, with the dimpled chin, Wait till you come to forty year. Curly gold locks cover foolish brains; Forty times over let Michaelmas pass; Once you have come to forty year. Pledge me round; I bid ye declare, All good fellows whose beards are gray, Ever a month was past away? The reddest lips that ever have kissed, How I loved her twenty years syne! Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. MY TRUE-LOVE HATH MY HEART. My true-love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange one to the other given : I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driven : My true-love hath my heart, and I have his. His heart in me keeps him and me in one; My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides: He loves my heart, for once it was his own; SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. I SAW TWO CLOUDS AT MORNING. I SAW two clouds at morning, And in the dawn they floated on, SWEET, BE NOT PROUD. SWEET, be not proud of those two eyes, ROBERT HERRICK. GREEN GROW THE RASHES O! GREEN grow the rashes O, Green grow the rashes O; The sweetest hours that e'er I spend Are spent amang the lasses O. There's naught but care on ev'ry han', An' 't were na for the lasses O ? The warly race may riches chase, An' riches still may fly them 0; An' though at last they catch them fast, Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them O. Gie me a canny hour at e'en, My arms about my dearie O, An' warly cares an' warly men May all gae tapsalteerie O. For you sae douce, ye sneer at this, Ye 're naught but senseless asses O! The wisest man the warl' e'er saw He dearly lo'ed the lasses O. Auld Nature swears the lovely dears Her noblest work she classes 0: Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, An' then she made the lasses O. ROBERT BURNS. THE CHRONICLE. MARGARITA first possessed, If I remember well, my breast, But when awhile the wanton maid Martha soon did it resign Beauteous Catharine gave place To Eliza's conquering face. Eliza till this hour might reign, Fundamental laws she broke, Mary then, and gentle Anne, And sometimes Mary was the fair, A mighty tyrant she! Had not Rebecca set me free. And Judith reignéd in her stead. One month, three days, and half an hour, Judith held the sovereign power: Wondrous beautiful her face! And so Susanna took her place. And the artillery of her eye, She beat out Susan, by the by. But in her place I then obeyed Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy-maid, To whom ensued a vacancy: Thousand worse passions then possessed The interregnum of my breast; Bless me from such an anarchy! Gentle Henrietta then, And a third Mary next began; Then Joan, and Jane, and Andria; And then a pretty Thomasine, And then another Catharine, And then a long et cætera. FROM THE THIRD BOOK OF LAWES's Ayres. FAIN would I love, but that I fear The fair one she 's a mark to all, DR. R. HUGHES. WISHES FOR THE SUPPOSED MISTRESS. WHOE'ER she be, That not impossible She That shall command my heart and me; Where'er she lie, Locked up from mortal eye In shady leaves of destiny: Till that ripe birth Of studied Fate stand forth, And teach her fair steps to our earth; Till that divine Idea take a shrine Of crystal flesh, through which to shine : Meet you her, my Wishes, Bespeak her to my blisses, And be ye called, my absent kisses. I wish her beauty That owes not all its duty To gaudy tire, or glist'ring shoe-tie : Something more than Taffeta or tissue can, Or rampant feather, or rich fan. A face that's best By its own beauty drest, And can alone command the rest : Sylvia, for all the pangs you see WILLIAM WALSH. THE MAIDEN'S CHOICE. GENTEEL in personage, Conduct, and equipage; Noble by heritage; Generous and free; Brave, not romantic; Honor maintaining, Meanness disdaining, Still entertaining, Engaging and new ; Neat, but not finical; Sage, but not cynical; Never tyrannical, But ever true. HENRY FIELDING. THE LOVELINESS OF LOVE. Ir is not Beauty I demand, A crystal brow, the moon's despair, Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair: Tell me not of your starry eyes, Your lips that seem on roses fed, Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed, – A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours, A breath that softer music speaks Than summer winds a-wooing flowers; These are but gauds: nay, what are lips? And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft Eyes can with baleful ardor burn; Poison can breath, that erst perfumed; There's many a white hand holds an urn With lovers' hearts to dust consumed. For crystal brows there's naught within; Give me, instead of Beauty's bust, One in whose gentle bosom I Could pour my secret heart of woes, Like the care-burdened honey-fly That hides his murmurs in the rose, My earthly Comforter! whose love ANONYMOUS MY DEAR AND ONLY LOVE. My dear and only love, I pray, Which virtuous souls abhore, Like Alexander I will reign, He either fears his fate too much, JAMES GRAHAM, Earl of Montrose MY CHOICE. SHALL I tell you whom I love! Hearken then awhile to me; And if such a woman move As I now shall versify, Be assured 't is she or none, That I love, and love alone. |