Richard Lovelace

Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore; I could not love thee (Dear) so much, Lov’d I not Honour more.

When Love with unconfinèd 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 Gods 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.

Amarantha sweet and fair Ah braid no more that shining hair! As my curious hand or eye Hovering round thee let it fly. Let it fly as unconfin’d As its calm ravisher, the wind, Who hath left his darling th’East, To wanton o’er that spicy nest. Ev’ry tress must be confest But neatly tangled at the best; Like a clue of golden thread, Most excellently ravelled. Do not then wind up that light In ribands, and o’er-cloud in night; Like the sun in’s early ray, But shake your head and scatter day. See ’tis broke! Within this grove The bower, and the walks of love, Weary lie we down and rest, And fan each other’s panting breast. Here we’ll strip and cool our fire In cream below, in milk-baths higher: And when all wells are drawn dry, I’ll drink a tear out of thine eye, Which our very joys shall leave That sorrows thus we can deceive; Or our very sorrows weep, That joys so ripe, so little keep.

Wise emblem of our politic world, Sage snail, within thine own self curl’d; Instruct me softly to make haste, Whilst these my feet go slowly fast. Compendious snail! thou seem’st to me, Large Euclid’s strict epitome; And in each diagram dost fling Thee from the point unto the ring; A figure now triangular, An oval now, and now a square; And then a serpentine dost crawl, Now a straight line, now crook’d, now all. Preventing rival of the day, Th’art up and openest thy ray, And ere the morn cradles the moon Th’art broke into a beauteous noon. Then when the sun sups in the deep, Thy silver horns ere Cynthia’s peep; And thou from thine own liquid bed New Phoebus heav’st thy pleasant head. Who shall a name for thee create, Deep riddle of mysterious state? Bold Nature that gives common birth To all products of seas and earth, Of thee, as earthquakes, is afraid, Nor will thy dire deliv’ry aid. Thou thine own daughter then, and sire, That son and mother art entire, That big still with thy self dost go, And liv’st an aged embryo; That like the cubs of India, Thou from thyself a while dost play; But frighted with a dog or gun, In thine own belly thou dost run, And as thy house was thine own womb, So thine own womb concludes thy tomb. But now I must (analyz’d king) Thy economic virtues sing; Thou great stay’d husband still within, Thou, thee, that’s thine dost discipline; And when thou art to progress bent, Thou mov’st thy self and tenement, As warlike Scythians travell’d, you Remove your men and city too; Then after a sad dearth and rain, Thou scatterest thy silver train; And when the trees grow nak’d and old, Thou clothest them with cloth of gold, Which from thy bowels thou dost spin, And draw from the rich mines within. Now hast thou chang’d thee saint; and made Thy self a fane that’s cupola’d; And in thy wreathed cloister thou Walkest thine own grey friar too; Strict, and lock’d up, th’art hood all o’er, And ne’er eliminat’st thy door. On salads thou dost feed severe, And ’stead of beads thou dropp’st a tear; And when to rest, each calls the bell, Thou sleep’st within thy marble cell, Where in dark contemplation plac’d, The sweets of nature thou dost taste; Who now with time thy days resolve, And in a jelly thee dissolve, Like a shot star, which doth repair Upward, and rarify the air.

I Why should you sweare I am forsworn, Since thine I vow’d to be? Lady it is already Morn, And ’twas last night I swore to thee That fond impossibility. II Have I not lov’d thee much and long, A tedious twelve houres space? I must all other Beauties wrong, And rob thee of a new imbrace; Could I still dote upon thy Face. III Not, but all joy in thy browne haire, By others may be found; But I must search the blank and faire Like skilfull Minerallist’s that sound For Treasure in un-plow’d-up ground. IV Then, if when I have lov’d my round, Thou prov’st the pleasant she; With spoyles of meaner Beauties crown’d, I laden will returne to thee, Ev’d sated with Varietie.

To My Noble Friend, Mr. Charles Cotton O thou that swing’st upon the waving hair Of some well-fillèd oaten beard, Drunk every night with a delicious tear Dropped thee from heaven, where now th’ art reared; The joys of earth and air are thine entire, That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly; And, when thy poppy works, thou dost retire To thy carved acorn-bed to lie. Up with the day, the sun thou welcom’st then, Sport’st in the gilt-plats of his beams, And all these merry days mak’st merry men, Thyself, and melancholy streams. But ah, the sickle! Golden ears are cropped; Ceres and Bacchus bid good night; Sharp, frosty fingers all your flowers have topped, And what scythes spared, winds shave off quite. Poor verdant fool, and now green ice! thy joys, Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass, Bid us lay in ’gainst winter rain, and poise Their floods with an o’erflowing glass. Thou best of men and friends! we will create A genuine summer in each other’s breast, And spite of this cold time and frozen fate, Thaw us a warm seat to our rest. Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally, As vestal flames; the North Wind, he Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve, and fly This Etna in epitome. Dropping December shall come weeping in, Bewail th’usurping of his reign: But when in showers of old Greek we begin, Shall cry he hath his crown again! Night, as clear Hesper, shall our tapers whip From the light casements where we play, And the dark hag from her black mantle strip, And stick there everlasting day. Thus richer than untempted kings are we, That, asking nothing, nothing need: Though lords of all what seas embrace, yet he That wants himself is poor indeed.