IX.

WHAT LOVE HAS DONE.

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,
Doted on a silver swan;

Danae, 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.
Beaumont and Fletcher.

X.

TRUE LOVE

AN EVER-FIXED MARK.

LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom :-

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare.

XI.

TRUE LOVE

STILL THE SAME.

No, no, fair heretic; it needs must be

But an ill love in me,

And worse for thee;

For were it in my power

To love thee now this hour

More than I did the last,

I would then so fall

I might not love at all.

Love that can flow, and can admit increase,
Admits as well an ebb, and may grow less.

True love is still the same; the torrid zones,
And these more frigid ones,

It must not know.

For love grown cold or hot
Is lust or friendship, not

The thing we have.

For that's a flame would die,
Held down or up too high:

Then think I love more than I can express,

And would love more, could I but love thee less.

Sir John Suckling.

XII.

THE SIGNS OF LOVE.

THE PERFECT LOVER.

HONEST lover whosoever,

If in all thy love there ever

Was one wav'ring thought, if thy flame
Were not still even, still the same:

Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

If when she appears i' th' room,

Thou dost not quake, and art struck dumb

And in striving this to cover

Dost not speak thy words twice over,

Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

If fondly thou dost not mistake,
And all defects for graces take,

Persuad'st thyself that jests are broken

When she has little or nothing spoken:
Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

If when thou appear'st to be within,

Thou let'st not men ask and ask again;
And when thou answer'st, if it be

To what was asked thee properly;
Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

If when thy stomach calls to eat,
Thou cut'st not fingers 'stead of meat,
And, with much gazing on her face,
Dost not rise hungry from the place :
Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

If by this thou dost discover

That thou art no perfect lover,

And, desiring to love true,

Thou dost begin to love anew:
Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

Sir John Suckling.

XIII.

THE SIGNS OF LOVE.

CAN THIS BE LOVE?

WHEN Delia on the plain appears,
Awed by a thousand tender fears,
I would approach, but dare not move;-
Tell me, my heart, if this be love.

Whene'er she speaks, my ravished ear
No other voice than hers can hear,
No other wit but hers approve ;-
Tell me, my heart, if this be love.

If she some other swain commend,
Though I was once his fondest friend,
His instant enemy I prove;—
Tell me, my heart, if this be love.

When she is absent, I no more
Delight in all that pleased before-
The clearest spring, the shadiest grove;-
Tell me, my heart, if this be love.

When fond of power, of beauty vain,
Her nets she spread for every swain,
I strove to hate, but vainly strove ;-
Tell me, my heart, if this be love.

George, Lord Lyttelton.

XIV.

THE LOVELINESS Of Love.

LOVE, dearest lady, such as I would speak,
Lives not within the humour of the eye;-
Not being but an outward phantasy,
That skims the surface of a tinted cheek,-·
Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,
As if the rose made summer, and so lie
Amongst the perishable things that die,
Unlike the love which I would give and seek,
Whose health is of no hue-to feel decay
With cheeks' decay that have a rosy prime.