The virgin rose, that untouch'd stands, Such fate, cre long, will thee betide, NOT, CELIA, that I juster am Or truer than the rest; For I would change each hour like them, Were it my interest. But I'm so fixt alone to thee By every thought I have, That should you now my heart set free, →T would be again your slave. AN All that in woman is adored In thy dear self I find; For the whole sex can but afford Not to my virtue, but thy power, When change itself can give no more SEDLEY. IT is not, CELIA, in our power May lose the joys we now do taste: The blessed that immortal be From change of love are only free. Then since we mortal lovers are, Ask not how long our love will last; But while it does, let us take care To live, because we're sure to die? ETHERIDGE. SAY, MYRA, why is gentle love Is it because you fear to share Alas! by some degree of woe The heart can ne'er a transport know, LYTTELTON. AWAKE, awake, my lyre! And tell thy silent master's humble tale Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire: Though Though so exalted she, And I so lowly be, Tell her such different notes make all thy harmony. Hark! how the strings awake: And though the moving hand approach not near, A kind of numerous trembling make. Now all thy charms apply, Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye. Weak lyre! thy virtue sure Is useless here, since thou art only found And she to wound, but not to cure. My passion to remove: Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love. Sleep, sleep again, my lyre! For thou canst never tell my humble tale In sounds that will prevail, Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire: AR All thy vain mirth lay by, Bid thy strings silent lie, Sleep, sleep again, my lyre, and let thy master die.* COWLEY. TO MY LUTE. WHAT shade and what stillness around! The virgin may wake to thy strain, And be sooth'd, nay, be pleased with thy song; Alas! she may pity the swain, And fancy his sorrows too long. Could thy voice give a smile to her cheek, *This song or ode is given in the "Davideis" as addressed by David to Saul's daughter, Michal. It is one of the proofs that Cowley, when not unhappily an imitator of Donne and the rest of the metaphysical school, was capable of all the elegance and harmony properly belonging to lyrical poetry. Then |