Sacred Life, more sweet and fair
Than all her children of earth and air,
Fountain dearer than joy in the breast,

In the blue I adored, in the grass I caressed:
Then Earth, my mother, leaned to my ear,
And spoke me clear.

To thee the rose her odour,

Her glory dedicates ;

And thee the pink's sweet-budded fringe
Of snow awaits.

For thee is the sprinkled fire of the broom,
For thee the azalea burns her bloom;

O child, does thy heart not tell thee how
Thy joy is answered from every bough?
In the throat of the bird, in the sap of the tree,
'Tis all for thee!

Stricken with joy and wonder,

I raised my eyes around,

And saw what mystery flowered for me
In that enchanted ground!

The roses, the roses, rich entwined,
Heavy with love to me inclined;

Yearning up from the dusk of death,

They trembled towards me with living breath.
O none that loved me is dead, I knew,
And each is true.

Now forth to the world attended

By the spirits of that hour,
I bear within me a charm secure
As the scent asleep in a flower.

Wise men now, profound in care,

Pass me with distrustful air:

But the child perceives, and the careless boy
Now admits me of his joy.

And my love in a glory enshrines my bliss
In a laughing kiss.

Laurence Binyon.

Song

(From the Third Book of Airs)

OME! O come, my life's delight!

COME

Let me not in languor pine! Love loves no delay; thy sight, The more enjoyed, the more divine! O come, and take from me

The pain of being deprived of thee!

Thou all sweetness dost enclose ! Like a little world of bliss:

Beauty guards thy looks! The rose

In them, pure and eternal is.

Come then! and make thy flight
As swift to me as heavenly light!

Thomas Campion.

Song

(From the Third Book of Airs)

SLEEP, angry beauty, sleep, and fear not me!
For who a sleeping lion dares provoke?
It shall suffice me, here to sit and see,
Those lips shut up, that never kindly spoke.
What sight can more content a lover's mind
Than beauty seeming harmless, if not kind?

My words have charmed her, for secure she sleeps ; Though guilty much, of wrong done to my love; And, in her slumber, see! she, close-eyed, weeps! Dreams often, more than waking passions move. Plead, Sleep, my cause, and make her soft like thee!

That she, in peace, may wake, and pity me.

Song

Thomas Campion.

(From Songs and Sonnets)

SWEETEST love, I do not go,

For weariness of thee,

Nor in the hope the world can show
A fitter love for me:

But since that I

Must die at last, 'tis best,
Thus to use myself in jest
By feigned deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here to-day;

He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way;
Then fear not me,

But believe that I shall make
Hastier journeys since I take
More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall;
But come bad chance,

And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,

Itself o'er us to advance.

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,

My life's blood doth decay.

It cannot be

That thou lov'st me as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill;

Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfil.

But think that we

Are but turn'd aside to sleep,
They who one another keep

Alive, ne'er parted be.

John Donne.

(From the Passionate Pilgrim)

AIR is my love, but not so fair as fickle;

FAIR

Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty; Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle; Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty :

A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her,
None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

Her lips to mine how often hath she join'd,
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
How many tales to please me hath she coin'd,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!
Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
Her faiths, her oaths, her tears, and all were
jestings.

She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth,
She burn'd out love, as soon as straw out-burneth;
She fram'd the love, and yet she foil'd the framing,
She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.
Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?

Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.