CHIVALRIC LOVE

Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.

I vow'd unvarying faith, and she

SCOTT.

To whom in full I pay that vow,

Rewards me with variety

Which men who change can never know.

COVENTRY PATMORE.

XCII

TO ALTHEA

FROM PRISON

WHEN love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered to her eye,
The gods that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round, With no allaying Thames,

Our careless heads with roses bound, Our hearts with loyal flames; When thirsty grief in wine we steep, When healths and draughts go free, Fishes that tipple in the deep.

Know no such liberty.

When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my king;

When I shall voice aloud, how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.

RICHARD Lovelace.

XCIII

SUCH ones ill judge of Love that cannot love,
Ne in their frozen hearts feel kindly flame :
For-thy they ought not thing unknown reprove,
Ne natural affection faultless blame,

For fault of few that have abused the same;

For it of honour and all virtue is

The root, and brings forth glorious flowers of fame, That crown true lovers with immortal bliss,

The meed of them that love, and do not live amiss. EDMUND Spenser.

XCIV

BECAUSE I breathe not love to every one,

Nor do not use set colours for to wear,
Nor nourish special locks of vowèd hair,
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan,

The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan
Of them which in their lips Love's standard bear,-
"What, he!" they say of 66
me, 'now I dare swear
He cannot love; no, no, let him alone."

And think so still, so Stella know my mind;
Profess indeed I do not Cupid's art;

But
you,
fair maids, at length this true shall find,
That his right badge is but worn in the heart:
Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove;
They love indeed who quake to say they love.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

XCV

SEEK not the tree of silkiest bark

And balmiest bud,

To carve her name while yet 'tis dark

Upon the wood.

The world is full of noble tasks,

And wreaths hard won :

Each work demands strong hearts, strong hands,

Till day is done.

Sing not that violet-veinèd skin,

That cheek's pale roses,

The lily of that form wherein

Her soul reposes:

Forth to the fight, true man, true knight;

The clash of arms

Shall more prevail than whispered tale

To win her charms.

The warrior for the True, the Right,
Fights in Love's name :

K