GIVE ME MORE LOVE OR MORE GIVE me more love or more disdain ; The temperate affords me none; Give me a storm; if it be love, Like Danae 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. him: He'll make a proper man: The best thing in him Than that mixed in his cheek; 't was just the difference Betwixt the constant red, and mingled damask. There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him In parcels, as I did, would have gone near 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; 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? Be she fairer than the day, What care I how fair she be? Shall my foolish heart be pined If she be not so to me, What care I how kind she be? Shall a woman's virtues move If she be not such to me, 'Cause her fortune seems too high, Think what with them they would do Great, or good, or kind, or fair, What care I for whom she be? GEORGE WITHER. LET NOT WOMAN E'ER COMPLAIN. LET not woman e'er complain Of inconstancy in love; Let not woman e'er complain Fickle man is apt to rove; Look abroad through Nature's range, Nature's mighty law is change; Ladies, would it not be strange Man should then a monster prove? Mark the winds, and mark the skies; Sun and moon but set to rise, LOVE in my bosom like a bee, Now with his wings he plays with me, Within mine eyes he makes his nest, Ah! wanton, will you? And if I sleep, then pierceth he And makes his pillow of my knee, The livelong night; Strike I the lute, he tunes the string, Else I with roses every day Will whip you hence, And bind you when you long to play, I'll shut my eyes to keep you in, If he gainsay me! What if I beat the wanton boy With many a rod, He will repay me with annoy Because a god ; Then sit thou softly on my knee, THOMAS LODGE. CUPID AND CAMPASPE. CUPID and my Campaspe played At cards for kisses, - Cupid paid; He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows, His mother's doves, and team of sparrows, Loses them too; then down he throws The coral of his lip, the rose What, of all things, midst the heap, Of my wine I plunged and sank him; And what d' ye think I did?--I drank him! LOVE AND TIME. LEIGH HUNT. Two pilgrims from the distant plain Thick curling round his face so fair; But speaks no word by night or day. Fast fadeth with a certain doom; But where the beauteous boy doth pass Unnumbered flowers are seen to bloom. And thus before the sage, the boy Trips lightly o'er the blooming lands, And proudly bears a pretty toy, A crystal glass with diamond sands. A smile o'er any brow would pass To see him frolic in the sun, To see him shake the crystal glass, And make the sands more quickly run. And now they leap the streamlet o'er, A silver thread so white and thin, And now they reach the open door, And now they lightly enter in : While passing by your mother's door, It was that dear, delicious hour When Owen here the nosegay brought, And found you in the woodbine bower, Since then, indeed, I've needed naught." A blush steals over Norah's face, A smile comes over Owen's brow, The sweet confusion he has done, And makes the sands more quickly run. "Dear Norah, we are pilgrims, bound I dwell with peasants, he with kings. "And thus together on we go, Where'er I chance or wish to lead ; And Time, whose lonely steps are slow, Now sweeps along with lightning speed. Now on our bright predestined way We must to other regions pass; But take this gift, and night and day Look well upon its truthful glass. "How quick or slow the bright sands fall Is hid from lovers' eyes alone, If you can see them move at all, Be sure your heart has colder grown. And then they'll pass you know not how." |