"Ah, How Sweet It Is To Love" 469

Though every diamond in Jove's crown
Fixed his forehead to a frown;

Her eye a strong appeal can give,
Beauty smiles, and Love shall live.

O, if Love shall live, O where,
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breast, or in her breath,
Shall I hide poor Love from death?
For in the life aught else can give,
Love shall die, although he live.

Or, if Love shall die, O where,
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breath, or in her breast,
Shall I build his funeral nest?

While Love shall thus entombèd lie,
Love shall live, although he die!

Richard Crashaw [1613?-1649]

"AH, HOW SWEET IT IS TO LOVE!"

From "Tyrannic Love"

Ан, 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 be sweeter far

Than all other pleasures are.

Sighs which are from lovers blown
Do but gently heave the heart:
Even the tears they shed alone

Cure, like trickling balm, their smart :
Lovers, when they lose their breath,
Bleed away in easy death.

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,

'Tis but rain, and runs not clear.

John Dryden [1631-1700]

SONG

LOVE still has something of the sea,
From whence his Mother rose;
No time his slaves from doubt can free,
Nor give their thoughts repose.

They are becalmed in clearest days,
And in rough weather tossed;
They wither under cold delays,
Or are in tempests lost.

One while they seem to touch the port,

Then straight into the main
Some angry wind, in cruel sport,
The vessel drives again.

At first Disdain and Pride they fear,
Which if they chance to 'scape,
Rivals and Falsehood soon appear,
In a more dreadful shape.

By such degrees to joy they come,
And are so long withstood,
So slowly they receive the sun,
It hardly does them good.

'Tis cruel to prolong a pain;
And to defer a joy,
Believe me, gentle Celemene,
Offends the winged boy.

Echoes

An hundred thousand oaths your fears,
Perhaps, would not remove;

And if I gazed a thousand years,

I could not deeper love.

471

Charles Sedley [1639?-1701]

THE VINE

THE wine of Love is music,

And the feast of Love is song:

And when Love sits down to the banquet,

Love sits long:

Sits long and arises drunken,

But not with the feast and the wine;

He reeleth with his own heart,

That great, rich Vine.

James Thomson (1834-1882]

ECHOES

How sweet the answer Echo makes

To Music at night

When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,

And far away o'er lawns and lakes

Goes answering light!

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.

'Tis when the sigh,--in youth sincere

And only then,

The sigh that's breathed for one to hear

Is by that one, that only Dear

Breathed back again.

Thomas Moore [1779-1852]

CUPID STUNG

CUPID once upon a bed

Of roses laid his weary head;
Luckless urchin, not to see

Within the leaves a slumbering bee.
The bee awaked-with anger wild
The bee awaked, and stung the child.
Loud and piteous are his cries;
To Venus quick he runs, he flies;
"Oh Mother! I am wounded through—
I die with pain-in sooth I do!
Stung by some little angry thing,
Some serpent on a tiny wing-
A bee it was-for once, I know,
I heard a rustic call it so."
Thus he spoke, and she the while
Heard him with a soothing smile;
Then said, "My infant, if so much
Thou feel the little wild bee's touch,
How must the heart, ah, Cupid! be,

The hapless heart that's stung by thee!"

Thomas Moore [1779-1852]

CUPID DROWNED

T'OTHER day, as I was twining

Roses, for a crown to dine in,
What, of all things, 'mid the heap,
Should I light on, fast asleep,
But the little desperate elf,

The tiny traitor, Love, himself!

By the wings I picked him up

Like a bee, and in a cup

Of my wine I plunged and sank him,

Then what d'ye think I did?--I drank him.

Faith, I thought him dead. Not he!

There he lives with ten-fold glee;

"In the Days of Old"

And now this moment with his wings
I feel him tickling my heart-strings.

SONG

473

Leigh Hunt [1784-1859)

OH! say not woman's heart is bought
With vain and empty treasure.
Oh! say not woman's heart is caught
By every idle pleasure.

When first her gentle bosom knows
Love's flame, it wanders never;
Deep in her heart the passion glows,
She loves, and loves for ever.

Oh! say not woman's false as fair,
That like the bee she ranges!

Still seeking flowers more sweet and rare,

As fickle fancy changes.

Ah! no, the love that first can warm
Will leave her bosom never;

No second passion e'er can charm,

She loves, and loves for ever.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866]

"IN THE DAYS OF OLD"

From "Crotchet Castle"

In the days of old

Lovers felt true passion,
Deeming years of sorrow
By a smile repaid:
Now the charms of gold,
Spells of pride and fashion,
Bid them say Good-morrow
To the best-loved Maid.

Through the forests wild,
O'er the mountains lonely,
They were never weary
Honor to pursue: