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 wher. 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?

ヨ

Nature did her so much right

As she scorns the help of art. In as many virtues dight

As e'er yet embraced a heart. So much good so truly tried, Some for less were deified

Wit she hath, without desier

To make known how much she hath; And her anger flames no higher

Than may fitly sweeten wrath.
Full of pity as may be,
Though perhaps not so to me.

Reason masters every sense,

And her virtues grace her birth; Lovely as all excellence,

Modest in her most of mirth.
Likelihood enough to prove
Only worth could kindle love.

Such she is; and if you know
Such a one as I have sung;
Be she brown, or fair, or so
That she be but somewhat young;
Be assured 't is she, or none,
That I love, and love alone.

WILLIAM BROWNE.

LOVE NOT ME FOR COMELY GRACE.

Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part,

No, nor for my constant heart;

For those may fail or turn to ill,
So thou and I shall sever;

Keep therefore a true woman's eye,
And love me still, but know not why.
So hast thou the same reason still
To dote upon me ever.

ANONYMOUS.

HE THAT LOVES A ROSY CHEEK.

HE that loves a rosy cheek,

Or a coral lip admires,

Or from starlike eyes doth seek

Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and steadfast mind
Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,

Kindle never-dying fires : —

Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.

T. CAREW.

LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG.

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN 1569.

LOVE me little, love me long!
Is the burden of my song:
Love that is too hot and strong
Burneth soon to waste.

Still I would not have thee cold,
Not too backward, nor too bold;
Love that lasteth till 't is old
Fadeth not in haste.
Love me little, love me long!
Is the burden of my song.

If thou lovest me too much,

'T will not prove as true a touch; Love me little more than such,

For I fear the end.

I'm with little well content,
And a little from thee sent
Is enough, with true intent
To be steadfast, friend.

Say thou lovest me, while thou live
I to thee my love will give,
Never dreaming to deceive

While that life endures;

Nay, and after death, in sooth,
I to thee will keep my truth,
As now when in my May of youth:
This my love assures.

Constant love is moderate ever,
And it will through life persever;
Give me that with true endeavor, -
I will it restore.

A suit of durance let it be,
For all weathers, - that for me,

For the land or for the sea:
Lasting evermore.

Winter's cold or summer's heat,
Autumn's tempests on it beat;
It can never know defeat,

Never can rebel:

Shall I love you like the fire, love,

With furious heat and noise,
To waken in you all love's fears
And little of love's joys?
The passion of the fire, love,

Whate'er it finds, destroys.

I will love you like the stars, love,
Set in the heavenly blue,
That only shine the brighter
After weeping tears of dew;
Above the wind and fire, love,

They love the ages through!

And when this life is o'er, love,

With all its joys and jars,

We'll leave behind the wind and fire

To wage their boisterous wars, Then we shall only be, love,

The nearer to the stars!

R. W. RAYMOND.

A "MERCENARY" MARRIAGE.

SHE moves as light across the grass

As moves my shadow large and tall; And like my shadow, close yet free, The thought of her aye follows me,

My little maid of Moreton Hall.

No matter how or where we loved,

Or when we 'll wed, or what befall;
I only feel she 's mine at last,
I only know I'll hold her fast,
Though to dust crumbles Moreton Hall.

Her pedigree-good sooth, 't is long!
Her grim sires stare from every wall;
And centuries of ancestral grace
Revive in her sweet girlish face,

As meek she glides through Moreton Hall.

Whilst I have-nothing; save, perhaps,
Some worthless heaps of idle gold
And a true heart, the which her eye
Through glittering dross spied, womanly;
Therefore they say her heart was sold !

I laugh; she laughs; the hills and vales
Laugh as we ride 'neath chestnuts tall,
Or start the deer that silent graze,
And look up, large-eyed, with soft gaze,
At the fair maid of Moreton Hall;

We let the neighbors talk their fill,

For life is sweet, and love is strong, And two, close knit in marriage ties, The whole world's shams may well despise, Its folly, madness, shame, and wrong.

That thou hast kept a portion back,

While I have staked the whole,
Let no false pity spare the blow,
But in true mercy tell me so.

Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfil?
One chord that any other hand
Could better wake or still?
Speak now, lest at some future day
My whole life wither and decay.
Lives there within thy nature hid
The demon-spirit, change,
Shedding a passing glory still

On all things new and strange?
It may not be thy fault alone,

But shield my heart against thine own.

Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day And answer to my claim,

That fate, and that to-day's mistake,

Not thou, had been to blame? Some soothe their conscience thus; but tho Wilt surely warn and save me now.

Nay, answer not, I dare not hear,

The words would come too late ; Yet I would spare thee all remorse, So comfort thee, my fate : Whatever on my heart may fall, Remember, I would risk it all!

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER.

A WOMAN'S QUESTION.
BEFORE I trust my fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine,
Before I let thy future give
Color and form to mine,

Before I peril all for thee,
Question thy soul to-night for me.

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel

A shadow of regret :

Is there one link within the past
That holds thy spirit yet?

Or is thy faith as clear and free
As that which I can pledge to thee?

Does there within thy dimmest dreams
A possible future shine,

Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,
Untouched, unshared by mine?

If so, at any pain or cost,

O, tell me before all is lost!

Look deeper still: if thou canst feel,
Within thy inmost soul,

THE LADY'S "YES."

"YES," I answered you last night; "No," this morning, sir, I say. Colors seen by candle-light

Will not look the same by day.

When the viols played their best, Lamps above, and laughs below, Love me sounded like a jest,

Fit for yes or fit for no.

Call me false or call me free,

Vow, whatever light may shine, No man on your face shall see Any grief for change on mine. Yet the sin is on us both;

Time to dance is not to woo ; Wooing light makes fickle troth Scorn of me recoils on you.

Learn to win a lady's faith

Nobly, as the thing is high, Bravely, as for life and death. With a loyal gravity.

GIVE ME MORE LOVE OR MORE
DISDAIN.

GIVE me more love or more disdain ;
The torrid or the frozen zone
Brings equal ease unto my pain;

The temperate affords me none;
Either extreme, of love or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.

Give me a storm; if it be love,
Like Danaë in a golden shower,
I swim in pleasure; if it prove

Disdain, that torrent will devour
My vulture hopes; and he's possessed
Of heaven that's but from hell released;
Then crown my joys, or cure my pain;
Give me more love or more disdain.

In parcels, as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him: but, for my part,

I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him:

For what had he to do to chide at me?

He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black;
And, now I am remembered, scorned at me:
I marvel, why I answered not again :
But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE SHEPHERD'S RESOLUTION.

SHALL I, wasting in despair,

Die because a woman's fair?

Or make pale my cheeks with care 'Cause another's rosy are?