Chapter I: PR’YTHEE send me back my heart,

Since I can not have thine;
For if from yours you will not part,
Why then should’st 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 you sever?

But love is such a mystery
I can not find it out;
For when I think I’m best resolved,
I then am in most 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.
_Sir John Suckling._

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 birds 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,
Enlargèd 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._

SONG

HEARS not my Phyllis how the birds
Their feathered mates salute?
They tell their passion in their words;
Must I alone be mute?
Phyllis, without frown or smile,
Sat and knotted all the while.

The god of love in thy bright eyes
Does like a tyrant reign;
But in thy heart a child he lies,
Without his dart or flame.
Phyllis without frown or smile,
Sat and knotted all the while.

So many months in silence past,
And yet in raging love,
Might well deserve one word at last
My passion should approve.
Phyllis, without frown or smile,
Sat and knotted all the while.

Must then your faithful swain expire,
And not one look obtain,
Which he, to soothe his fond desire,
Might pleasantly explain?
Phyllis, without frown or smile,
Sat and knotted all the while.
_Sir Charles Sedley._

THE DESPAIRING LOVER

DISTRACTED with care,
For Phyllis the fair,
Since nothing can move her,
Poor Damon, her lover,
Resolves in despair
No longer to languish,
Nor bear so much anguish;
But, mad with his love,
To a precipice goes,
Where a leap from above
Will soon finish his woes.

When, in rage, he came there,
Beholding how steep
The sides did appear,
And the bottom how deep;
His torments projecting,
And sadly reflecting
That a lover forsaken
A new lover may get;
But a neck, when once broken,
Can never be set:

And that he could die
Whenever he would;
But that he could live
But as long as he could;
How grievous soever
The torment might grow,
He scorned to endeavour
To finish it so.
But hold, unconcern’d,
At the thoughts of the pain,
He calmly return’d
To his cottage again.
_William Walsh._

CUPID MISTAKEN

AS after noon, one summer’s day,
Venus stood bathing in a river;
Cupid a-shooting went that way,
New strung his bow, new fill’d his quiver.

With skill he chose his sharpest dart:
With all his might his bow he drew:
Swift to his beauteous parent’s heart
The too-well-guided arrow flew.

“I faint! I die!” the goddess cried:
“O cruel, could’st thou find none other
To wreak thy spleen on: Parricide!
Like Nero, thou hast slain thy mother.”

Poor Cupid, sobbing, scarce could speak;
“Indeed, mama, I did not know ye:
Alas! how easy my mistake?
I took you for your likeness, Chloe.”
_Matthew Prior._

THE CONTRAST

IN London I never know what I’d be at,
Enraptured with this, and enchanted with that;
I’m wild with the sweets of variety’s plan,
And Life seems a blessing too happy for man.

But the Country, Lord help me! sets all matters right;
So calm and composing from morning to night;
Oh! it settles the spirits when nothing is seen
But an ass on a common, a goose on a green.

In town if it rain, why it damps not our hope,
The eye has her choice, and the fancy her scope
What harm though it pour whole nights or whole days?
It spoils not our prospects, or stops not our ways.

In the country what bliss, when it rains in the fields,
To live on the transports that shuttlecock yields;
Or go crawling from window to window, to see
A pig on a dung-hill, or crow on a tree.

In London if folks ill together are put,
A bow may be dropt, and a quiz may be cut;
We change without end; and if lazy or ill,
All wants are at hand, and all wishes at will.

In the country you’re nail’d, like a pale in the park,
To some stick of a neighbour that’s cramm’d in the ark;
And ’tis odds, if you’re hurt, or in fits tumble down,
You reach death ere the doctor can reach you from town.

In London how easy we visit and meet,
Gay pleasure’s the theme, and sweet smiles are our treat;
Our morning’s a round of good-humoured delight,
And we rattle, in comfort, to pleasure at night.

In the country, how sprightly! our visits we make
Through ten miles of mud, for Formality’s sake;
With the coachman in drink, and the moon in a fog,
And no thought in our head but a ditch or a bog.

In London the spirits are cheerful and light,
All places are gay and all faces are bright;
We’ve ever new joys, and revived by each whim,
Each day on a fresh tide of pleasure we swim.

But how gay in the country! what summer delight
To be waiting for winter from morning to night!
Then the fret of impatience gives exquisite glee
To relish the sweet rural subjects we see.

In town we’ve no use for the skies overhead,
For when the sun rises then we go to bed;
And as to that old-fashion’d virgin the moon;
She shines out of season, like satin in June.

In the country these planets delightfully glare
Just to show us the object we want isn’t there;
O, how cheering and gay, when their beauties arise,
To sit and gaze round with the tears in one’s eyes!

But ’tis in the country alone we can find
That happy resource, that relief of the mind,
When, drove to despair, our last efforts we make,
And drag the old fish-pond, for novelty’s sake:

Indeed, I must own, tis a pleasure complete
To see ladies well draggled and wet in their feet;
But what is all that to the transport we feel
When we capture, in triumph, two toads and an eel?

I have heard tho’, that love in a cottage is sweet,
When two hearts in one link of soft sympathy meet:
That’s to come—for as yet I, alas! am a swain
Who require, I own it, more links to my chain.

Your magpies and stock-doves may flirt among trees,
And chatter their transports in groves, if they please:
But a house is much more to my taste than a tree,
And for groves, O! a good grove of chimneys for me.

In the country, if Cupid should find a man out,
The poor tortured victim mopes hopeless about;
But in London, thank Heaven! our peace is secure,
Where for one eye to kill, there’s a thousand to cure.

I know love’s a devil, too subtle to spy,
That shoots through the soul, from the beam of an eye;
But in London these devils so quick fly about,
That a new devil still drives an old devil out.

In town let me live then, in town let me die,
For in truth I can’t relish the country, not I.
If one must have a villa in summer to dwell,
O, give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall!
_Charles Morris._

OH, TELL ME HOW TO WOO THEE

IF doughty deeds my lady please,
Right soon I’ll mount my steed;
And strong his arm, and fast his seat,
That bears frae me the meed.
I’ll wear thy colors in my cap,
Thy picture in my heart;
And he that bends not to thine eye
Shall rue it to his smart.
Then tell me how to woo thee, love;
Oh, tell me how to woo thee!
For thy dear sake, nae care I’ll take,
Though ne’er another trow me.

If gay attire delight thine eye,
I’ll dight me in array;
I’ll tend thy chamber door all night,
And squire thee all the day.
If sweetest sounds can win thine ear,
These sounds I’ll strive to catch;
Thy voice I’ll steal to woo thysel’—
That voice that none can match.
_Then tell me how to woo thee, love_, etc.

But if fond love thy heart can gain,
I never broke a vow;
Nae maiden lays her skaith to me;
I never loved but you.
For you alone I ride the ring,
For you I wear the blue;
For you alone I strive to sing—
Oh, tell me how to woo!
_Then tell me how to woo thee, love, etc._
_Robert Graham._

SONG FROM “THE DUENNA”