Cherry-Ripe
There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies blow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:
There cherries grow which none may biy
Till 'Cherry-ripe' themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearls a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds filled with snow;
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy
Till 'Cherry-ripe' themselves do cry.
Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threatening with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till 'Cherry-ripe' themselves do cry.
Come, O Come
Come, O come, my life's delight,
Let me not in langour 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.
My Lady's Eyes
Mistress, since you so much desire
To know the place of Cupid's fire,
In your fair shrine that flame doth rest,
Yet never harbored in your breast.
It bides not in your lips so sweet,
Nor where the rose and lilies meet;
But a little higher, a little higher,
There, there, O there lies Cupid's fire.
Even in those starry piercing eyes,
There Cupid's sacred fire lies;
Those eyes I strive not to enjoy,
For they have powrt to destroy:
Nor woo I for a smile or kiss,
So meanly truimphs not my bliss;
But a little higher, a little higher
I climb to crown my chaste desire.
The Plea
Kind in unkindness, when will you relent
And cease with faint love true love to torment?
Still entertained, excluding still I stand,
Her glove still hold, but cannot touch her hand.
In her fair hand my hopes and comforts rest:
O might my fortunes with that hand be blest!
No envious breaths then my deserts could shake
For they are good whom such true love doth make.
O let not beauty so forget her birth
That it should fruitless home return to earth!
Love is the fruit of beauty, then love one-
Not your sweet self, for such self-love is none.
Love one that only lives in loving you,
Whose wronged deserts would you with pity view,
This strange distaste which your affection sways
Would relish love, and you find better days.
Thus till my happy sight your beauty views,
Whose sweet remembrance still my hope renews,
Let these poor lines solicit love for me
And place my joys where my desires would be.
There Is None, O None But You
There is none, O none but you,
That from me estrange the sight,
Whom mine eyes affect to view,
And chained ears hear with delight.
Other beauties others move:
In you I all graces find;
Such is the effect of love,
To make them happy that are kind.
Women in frail beauty trust,
Only seem you fair to me:
Still prove truely kind and just,
For that may not dissembled be.
Sweet, afford me then your sight,
That, surveying all your looks,
Endless volumes I may write,
And fill the world with envied books:
Which, when after-ages view,
All shall wonder and despair-
Woman, to find a man so true,
Or man, a woman half so fair!
Untitled
Kind are her answers,
But her performance keeps no day;
Breaks time, as dancers
From their own music when they stray:
All her free favours
And smooth words wing my hopes in vain.
O did ever voice so sweet but only feign?
Can true love yield such delay,
Converting joy to pain?
Lost is our freedom,
When we submit to women so:
Why do we need 'em,
When in their best they work our woe?
There is no wisdon
Can alter ends, by Fate prefixed.
O why is the good of man with evil mixed?
Never were days yet called two,
But one night went betwixt.
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