Aн, how sweet it is to love!

Ah, how gay is young desire !
And what pleasing pains we prove
When we first approach love's fire!
Pains of love are sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.

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.
Lovers, when they lose their breath,
Bleed away in death.
easy

Love and Time with reverence use,
Treat them like a parting friend;
Nor the golden gifts refuse

Which in youth sincere they send:
For each year their price is more,
And they less simple than before.

Love, like spring-tides full and high,
Swells in every youthful vein;
But each tide does less supply,

Till they quite shrink in again.
If a flow in age appear,

"T is but rain, and runs not clear.

THE AGE OF WISDOM.

Ho! pretty page, with the dimpled chin,
That never has known the barber's shear,
All your wish is woman to win;
This is the way that boys begin,

Wait till you come to forty year.

Curly gold locks cover foolish brains;
Billing and cooing is all your cheer, —
Sighing, and singing of midnight strains,
Under Bonnybell's window-panes,
Wait till you come to forty year.

Forty times over let Michaelmas pass;
Grizzling hair the brain doth clear;
Then you know a boy is an ass,
Then you know the worth of a lass,

Once you have come to forty year.

Pledge me round; I bid ye declare,

All good fellows whose beards are gray,
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow and wearisome ere

Ever a month was past away?

The reddest lips that ever have kissed,
The brightest eyes that ever have shone,
May pray and whisper and we not list,
Or look away and never be missed,
Ere yet ever a month is gone.
Gillian's dead! God rest her bier,

How I loved her twenty years syne!
Marian's married; but I sit here,
Alone and merry at forty year,

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;
I cherish his because in me it bides:
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

I SAW TWO CLOUDS AT MORNING.

I SAW two clouds at morning,
Tinged by the rising sun,

And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one;

SWEET, BE NOT PROUD.

SWEET, be not proud of those two eyes,
Which starlike sparkle in their skies;
Nor be you proud that you can see
All hearts your captives, yours yet free.
Be you not proud of that rich hair,
Which wantons with the lovesick air;
Whenas that ruby which you wear,
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
Will last to be a precious stone
When all your world of beauty 's gone.

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',
In every hour that passes O;
What signifies the life o' man,

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,
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 loath and angry she to part
With the possession of my heart)

To Eliza's conquering face.

Eliza till this hour might reign,
Had she not evil counsels ta'en;

Fundamental laws she broke,
And still new favorites she chose,
Till up in arms my passions rose,
And cast away her yoke.

Mary then, and gentle Anne,
Both to reign at once began;
Alternately they swayed ;

And sometimes Mary was the fair,
And sometimes Anne the crown did wear,
And sometimes both I obeyed.
Another Mary then arose,
And did rigorous laws impose;

A mighty tyrant she!
Long, alas should I have been
Under that iron-sceptred queen,

Had not Rebecca set me free.
When fair Rebecca set me free,
"T was then a golden time with me:
But soon those pleasures fled;
For the gracious princess died
In her youth and beauty's pride,

And Judith reignéd in her stead.

One month, three days, and half an hour, Judith held the sovereign power:

Wondrous beautiful her face!
But so weak and small her wit,
That she to govern was unfit,

And so Susanna took her place.
But when Isabella came,
Armed with a resistless flame,

And the artillery of her eye,
Whilst she proudly marched about,
Greater conquests to find out,

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
I quickly should the willow wear;
Fain would I marry, but men say
When love is tied he will away;
Then tell me, love, what shall I do,
To cure these fears, whene'er I woo?

The fair one she 's a mark to all,
The brown each one doth lovely call,
The black 's a pearl in fair men's eyes,
The rest will stoop at any prize;
Then tell me, love, what shall I do,
To cure these fears whene'er I woo?

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
Are lab'ring in my breast;
I beg not you would favor me,
Would you but slight the rest!
How great soe'er your rigors are,
With them alone I'll cope;
I can endure my own despair,
But not another's hope.

WILLIAM WALSH.

THE MAIDEN'S CHOICE.

GENTEEL in personage, Conduct, and equipage; Noble by heritage; Generous and free;

Brave, not romantic;
Learned, not pedantic;
Frolic, not frantic,
This must he be.

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?
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer slips
Full oft he perisheth on them.

And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft
That wave hot youth to fields of blood?
Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft,
Do Greece or Ilium any good?

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;
They are but empty cells for pride ;
He who the Siren's hair would win
Is mostly strangled in the tide.

Give me, instead of Beauty's bust,
A tender heart, a loyal mind,
Which with temptation I would trust,
Yet never linked with error find, -

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
So indefeasible might be
That, when my spirit wonned above,
Hers could not stay, for sympathy.

ANONYMOUS

MY DEAR AND ONLY LOVE.

My dear and only love, I pray,
This noble world of thee
Be governed by no other sway
But purest monarchie.
For if confusion have a part,

Which virtuous souls abhore,
And hold a synod in thy heart,
I'll never love thee more.

Like Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone,
My thoughts shall evermore disdain
A rival on my throne.

He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch,
To win or lose it all.

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.