Yet Love hath echoes truer far

And far more sweet Than e'er, beneath the moonlight's star, Of horn or lute or soft guitar

The songs repeat.

Like fire in logs, it glows and warms 'em long; And though the flame be not so great,

Yet is the heat as strong.

EARL OF DORSET.

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.

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 fow in age appear, 'T is but rain, and runs not clear.

JOHN DRYDEN.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

I thought that morning cloud was blessed, It moved so sweetly to the west.

I saw two summer currents

Flow smoothly to their meeting,
And join their course, with silent force,

In peace each other greeting ;
Calm was their course through banks of green,
While dimpling eddies played between.

Where now I plain
Alas! in vain,

Lacking my life for liberty.
For without th' one,
Th' other is gone,
And there can none

It remedy ;
If th' one be past,
Th' other doth waste,

And all for lack of liberty.
And so I drive,
As yet alive,
Although I strive

With misery;
Drawing my breath,
Looking for death,

And loss of life for liberty.
But thou that still,
May'st at thy will,
Turn all this ill

Adversity;
For the repair,
Of my welfare,

Grant me but life and liberty.

Such be your gentle motion,

Till life's last pulse shall beat ;
Like summer's beam, and summer's stream,

Float on, in joy, to meet
A calmer sea, where storms shall cease,
A purer sky, where all is

peace.
JOHN G. C. BRAINARD

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY.

The fountains mingle with the river,

And the rivers with the ocean ; The winds of heaven mix forever,

With a sweet emotion ;
Nothing in the world is single ;

All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle :-

Why not I with thine ?

And if not so,
Then let all go
To wretched woe,

And let me die;
For th' one or th' other,
There is none other ;
My death, or life with liberty.

SIR THOMAS WYATT.

See ! the mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea : What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me ?

MY TRUE-LOVE HATH MY HEART.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

THOSE EYES.

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.

Ah ! do not wanton with those eyes,

Lest I be sick with seeing ; Nor cast them down, but let them rise,

Lest shame destroy their being.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

I SAW TWO CLOUDS AT MORNING.

Ah ! be not angry with those fires,

For then their threats will kill me ; Nor look too kind on my desires,

For then my hopes will spill me. Ah ! do not steep them in thy tears,

For so will sorrow slay me; Nor spread them as distraught with fears, – Mine own enough betray me.

BEN JONSON.

I saw two clouds at morning,

Tinged by the rising sun, And in the dawn they floated on,

And mingled into one ;

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 reigned 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 eve,
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 ct catera.

Gie me a canny hour at e'en,

My arms about my dearie 0, An' warly cares an' warly men

May all gae tapsalteerie 0.

For you sae douce, ye sneer at this,

Ye're naught but senseless asses 0 ! The wisest man the warl' e'er saw

He dearly lo'ed the lasses 0.

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 0.

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.

face made up
Out of no other shop
Than what Nature's white hand sets ope.
Sydneian showers
Of sweet discourse, whose powers
Can crown old Winter's head with flowers.
Whate'er delight
Can make day's forehead bright
Or give down to the wings of night.
Soft silken hours,
Open suns, shady bowers ;
'Bove all, nothing within that lowers.
Days, that need borrow
No part of their good morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow :
Days, that in spite
Of darkness, by the light
Of a clear mind are day all night.
Life, that dares send
A challenge to his end,
And when it comes, say, “Welcome, friend."
I wish her store
Of worth may leave her poor
Of wishes ; and I wish — no more.

Now, if Time knows
That Her, whose radiant brows
Weave them a garland of my vows;
Her that dares be
What these lines wish to see :
I seek no further, it is She.
'Tis She, and here
Lo! I unclothe and clear
My wishes' cloudy character.
Such worth as this is
Shall fix my flying wishes,
And determine them to kisses.
Let her full glory,
My fancies, fiy before ye ;
Be ye my fictions :- but her story.

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 :

R. CRASHAW

RIVALRY IN LOVE.

- 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 :

Of all the torments, all the cares,

With which our lives are curst; Of all the plagues a lover bears,

Sure rivals are the worst !
By partners in each other kind,

AMictions easier grow;
In love alone we hate to find

Companione of our woe.

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, Earias Montrose

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 llium any good ?

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.