LVII.

LOVE'S PETITION.

THE SOLDIER GOING TO THE FIELD.

PRESERVE thy sighs, unthrifty girl,
To purify the air;

Thy tears to thread, instead of pearl,
On bracelets of your hair.

The trumpet makes the echo hoarse,
And wakes the louder drum;
Expense of mirth gains no remorse,
When sorrow should be dumb.
For I must go where lazy peace
Will hide her drowsy head,
And, for the sport of kings, increase
The number of the dead.

But first I'll chide thy cruel theft:
Can I in war delight,

Who being of my heart bereft,
Can have no heart to fight?

Thou know'st the sacred laws of old
Ordained a thief should pay,
To quit him of his theft, sevenfold
What he had stolen away.
Thy payment shall but double be;
O then with speed resign

My own seduced heart to me,

Accompanied with thine.

Sir William Davenant.

LVIII.

LOVE'S PETITION.

TO SEND BACK HIS HEART.

I PRITHEE send me back my heart.
Since I cannot have thine;

For if from yours you will not part,

Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?

Yet now I think on't, let it lie,
To find it were in vain;
For thou'st a thief in either eye
Would steal it back again.

Why should two hearts in one breast lie,
And yet not lodge together?

O Love! where is thy sympathy,

If thus our breasts thou sever?

But love is such a mystery,

I cannot find it out;

For when I think I'm best resolved,
Then I am most in doubt.

Then farewell care, and farewell woe;

I will no longer pine;

For I'll believe I have her heart,

As much as she has mine.

LIX.

Sir John Suckling.

LOVE'S PETITION.

MORE LOVE OR MORE DISDAIN.

'GIVE me more love or more disdain;
The torrid or the frozen zone
Bring equal ease unto my pain;

The temperate affords me none.
Either extreme of love or hate
Is sweeter than a calm estate.

Give me a storm; if it be love,
Like Danaë in that 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.

Thomas Carew.

LX.

LOVE'S PETITION.

FAIR, SWEET, AND YOUNG.

FAIR, Sweet, and young, receive a prize
Reserved for your victorious eyes:
From crowds, whom at your feet you see,
Oh, pity and distinguish me!
As I from thousand beauties more
Distinguish you, and only you adore.
Your face for conquest was designed;
Your every motion charms my mind;
Angels, when you your silence break,
Forget their hymns to hear you speak;
But when at once they hear and view,
Are loth to mount, and long to stay with you.

No graces can your form improve,

But all are lost unless you love;

While that sweet passion you disdain,

Your veil and beauty are in vain :

In pity then prevent my fate,

For after dying all reprieve's too late.

LXI.

John Dryden.

LOVE'S PETITION.

PEACE IN LOVE.

'T is not your saying that you love
Can ease me of my smart;
Your actions must your words approve,
Or else you break my heart.

In vain you bid my passions cease,
And ease my troubled breast;
Your love alone must give me peace--
Restore my wonted rest.

But if I fail your heart to move,
Or 't is not yours to give,

I cannot, will not, cease to love,

But I will cease to live.

Aphra Behn.

LXII.

LOVE'S PETITION.

A PARTING LOVER.

In vain you tell your parting lover,
You wish fair winds may waft him over.
Alas, what winds can happy prove

That bear me far from what I love?
Alas, what dangers on the main
Can equal those that I sustain

From slighted vows and cold disdain?

Be gentle, and in pity choose
To wish the wildest tempests loose;
That, thrown again upon the coast

Where first my shipwrecked heart was lost,
I may once more repeat my pain;
Once more in dying notes complain
Of slighted vows and cold disdain.

Matthew Prior.

LXIII.

LOVE'S PETITION.

BEAUTY'S PROVINCE.

YES Fulvia is like Venus fair,

Has all her bloom and shape and air;

But still, to perfect every grace,

She wants the smile upon her face.

The crown majestic Juno wore,
And Cynthia's brows the crescent bore,
An helmet marked Minerva's mien,

But smiles distinguished beauty's queen.

Her train was formed of smiles and loves,
Her chariot drawn by gentlest doves!
And from her zone the nymph may find
'Tis beauty's province to be kind.

Then smile, my fair; and all whose aim
Aspires to paint the Cyprian dame,
Or bid her breathe in living stone,
Shall take their forms from you alone.

William Shenstone.

LXIV.

LOVE'S PETITION.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP.

HARD is the fate of him who loves,
Yet dares not tell his trembling pain,
But to the sympathetic groves,

But to the lonely listening plain.

Oh! when she blesses next your shade,
Oh! when her footsteps next are seen

In flowery tracts along the mead,
In fresher mazes o'er the green,

Ye gentle spirits of the vale,

To whom the tears of love are dear,

From dying lilies waft a gale,

And sigh my sorrows in her ear.

O tell her what she cannot blame,

Though fast my tongue must ever bind;

O tell her that my virtuous flame
Is as her spotless soul refined.

Not her own guardian-angel eyes
With chaster tenderness his care,
Not purer her own wishes rise,

Not holier her own sighs in prayer.