SECRECY PROTESTED. Fear not (dear love) that I'll reveal The god of love himself (whose dart What sweets in stolen embraces dwell. If when I die physicians doubt What caused my death, and there to view Of all their judgments which was true, Rip up my heart, O then I fear The world will see thy picture there. JOHN FLETCHER. 1576-1625. ["The Mad Lover." 1618.] Go, happy heart! for thou shalt lie Tell her, if she chance to hide If a tear escape her eye, The altar was my loving breast, Your body was the sacred shrine, Your cruel mind the power divine, ["The Tragedy of Valentinian." About 1618.] SONG. Hear, ye ladies that despise What the mighty Love has done; Fear examples, and be wise: Fair Calisto was a nun: Leda, sailing on the stream, To deceive the hopes of man, Love accounting but a dream, Doated on a silver swan; Danaë, in a brazen tower, Where no love was, loved a shower. Hear, ye ladies that are coy, What the mighty Love can do; Fear the fierceness of the boy: The chaste moon he makes to woo; Vesta, kindling holy fires, Circled round about with spies, Never dreaming loose desires, Doting at the altar dies. Ilion, in a short hour, higher He can build, and once more fire. ["A Wife for a Month." 1624.] TO THE BLEST EVANTHE. Let those complain that feel Love's cruelty, With roses gently h' has corrected me, My war is without rage or blows: My mistress' eyes shine fair on my desires, And hope springs up inflamed with her new fires. No more an exile will I dwell, With folded arms, and sighs all day, Reckoning the torments of my hell, And flinging my sweet joys away: I am called home again to quiet peace, My mistress smiles, and all my sorrows cease. Yet, what is living in her eye, Or being blessed with her sweet tongue, If these no other joys imply? A golden gyve, a pleasing wrong: To be your own but one poor month, I'd give ["The Elder Brother." About 1624.] ODE. Beauty clear and fair, Where the air Rather like a perfume dwells; Where the violet and the rose, Their blue veins in blush disclose, Where to live near, And planted there, Is to live, and still live new; Where to gain a favour is More than light, perpetual bliss Dear, again back recall To this light, A stranger to himself and all; Both the wonder and the story ; Shall be yours, and eke the glory: I am your servant, and your thrall. |