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Love is a Sickness

Love is a sickness full of woes,
   All remedies refusing;
A plant that with most cutting grows,
   Most barren with best using.
   Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries--
   Heigh ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,
   A tempest everlasting;
And Jove hath made it of a kind
   Not well, nor full nor fasting.
   Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries--

Love Inthron'd. Ode

I.
Introth, I do my self perswade,
That the wilde boy is grown a man,
And all his childishnesse off laid,
E're since LUCASTA did his fires fan;
H' has left his apish jigs,
And whipping hearts like gigs:
For t' other day I heard him swear,
That beauty should be crown'd in honours chair.

II.
With what a true and heavenly state
He doth his glorious darts dispence,
Now cleans'd from falsehood, blood and hate,
And newly tipt with innocence!
Love Justice is become,

Love Inthron'd

I.

Introth, I do my self perswade,
That the wilde boy is grown a man,
And all his childishnesse off laid,
E're since Lucasta did his fires fan;
H' has left his apish jigs,
And whipping hearts like gigs:
For t' other day I heard him swear,
That beauty should be crown'd in honours chair.

II.

With what a true and heavenly state
He doth his glorious darts dispence,
Now cleans'd from falsehood, blood and hate,
And newly tipt with innocence!
Love Justice is become,
And doth the cruel doome;

Love Infinite

Where the honeysuckle blows
In the summer night, entwined
With fresh leaves of the rose,
Greenness in gloom divined;
Sweet breaths in a mystery conspire
My soul to ravish in swift desire

Yet I, as the hidden grass
I roam, within me bear
Joys that all these surpass,
And taste diviner air.
I love, I am loved: ah, nothing was ever sweet
As the word my lips to my heart repeat.

To take into my arms
The body of my bliss;
Charm beyond earthly charms,
Thought beyond thought were this.

Love Inducin Christian Conduct

When understand my meaning by my words,
How sense of mercy unto faith affords

Both grace to sanctify, and holy make
That soul that of forgiveness doth partake.

Thus having briefly showed you what is
The way of life, or sanctity, of bliss,

I would not in conclusion have you think,
By what I say, that Christian men should drink

In these my words with lightness, or that they
Are now exempted from what every day

Their duty is. No, God doth still expect,
Yea, doth command, that they do not neglect

Love Increased By Suffering

'I love the Lord,' is still the strain
This heart delights to sing:
But I reply--your thoughts are vain,
Perhaps 'tis no such thing.

Before the power of love divine
Creation fades away;
Till only God is seen to shine
In all that we survey.

In gulfs of awful night we find
The God of our desires;
'Tis there he stamps the yielding mind,
And doubles all its fires.

Flames of encircling love invest,
And pierce it sweetly through;
'Tis filled with sacred joy, yet pressed
With sacred sorrow too.

Love in Twilight

There is darkness behind the light -- and the pale light drips
Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom
Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships --
And the firelight wavers and changes about the room,

As the three logs crackle and burn with a small still sound;
Half-blotting with dark the deeper dark of her hair,
Where she lies, head pillowed on arm, and one hand curved round
To shield the white face and neck from the faint thin glare.

Gently she breathes -- and the long limbs lie at ease,

Love in Thy Youth, Fair Maid

Love in thy youth, fair maid; be wise,
Old Time will make thee colder,
And though each morning new arise
Yet we each day grow older.
Thou as heaven art fair and young,
Thine eyes like twin stars shining:
But ere another day be sprung,
All these will be declining.
Then winter comes with all his fears
And all thy sweets shall borrow;
Too late then wilt thou shower thy tears,
And I too late shall sorrow.

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