I love you, but a sense of pain
Is in my heart and in my brain;
Now, when your voice and eyes are kind,
May I reveal my complex mind?

Though I am yours, it is my curse
Some ideal passion to rehearse:
I dream of one that's not like you,
Never of one that's half so true.

To quell these yearnings, vague and wild,
I often kneel by our dear child,
In still, dark nights (you are asleep),
And hold his hands, and try to weep.

I cannot weep; I cannot pray--
Why grow so pale, and turn away?
Do you expect to hold me fast

1 Love! in what poison is thy dart
Dipp'd, when it makes a bleeding heart?
None know but they who feel the smart.

2 It is not thou, but we are blind,
And our corporeal eyes (we find)
Dazzle the optics of our mind.

3 Love to our citadel resorts;
Through those deceitful sally-ports,
Our sentinels betrays our forts.

4 What subtle witchcraft man constrains,
To change his pleasure into pains,
And all his freedom into chains?

5 May not a prison, or a grave,
Like wedlock, honour's title have

This Iron Age (so fraudulent and bold!)
Touch'd with this love, would be an Age of Gold;
Not, as they feign'd, that oaks should honey drop,
Or land neglected bear an unsown crop;
Love would make all things easy, safe, and cheap;
None for himself would either sow or reap;
Our ready help, and mutual love, would yield
A nobler harvest than the richest field.
Famine and death, confined to certain parts,
Extended are by barrenness of hearts.
Some pine for want where others surfeit now;
But then we should the use of plenty know.

1 'Tis not your beauty can engage
My wary heart;
The sun, in all his pride and rage,
Has not that art;
And yet he shines as bright as you,
If brightness could our souls subdue.

2 'Tis not the pretty things you say,
Nor those you write,
Which can make Thyrsis' heart your prey:
For that delight,
The graces of a well-taught mind,
In some of our own sex we find.

3 No, Flavia! 'tis your love I fear;
Love's surest darts,
Those which so seldom fail him, are
Headed with hearts;

Thrice happy pair! of whom we cannot know
Which first began to love, or loves most now;
Fair course of passion! where two lovers start,
And run together, heart still yoked with heart;
Successful youth! whom love has taught the way
To be victorious in the first essay.
Sure love's an art best practisèd at first,
And where th'experienced still prosper worst!
I, with a different fate, pursued in vain
The haughty Cælia, till my just disdain
Of her neglect, above that passion borne,
Did pride to pride oppose, and scorn to scorn.

As gather'd flowers, while their wounds are new,
Look gay and fresh, as on the stalk they grew;
Torn from the root that nourish'd them, awhile
(Not taking notice of their fate) they smile,
And, in the hand which rudely pluck'd them, show
Fairer than those that to their autumn grow;
So love and beauty still that visage grace;
Death cannot fright them from their wonted place.
Alive, the hand of crooked Age had marr'd,
Those lovely features which cold Death has spared.

No wonder then he sped in love so well,
When his high passion he had breath to tell;

1 They that never had the use
Of the grape's surprising juice,
To the first delicious cup
All their reason render up;
Neither do, nor care to know,
Whether it be best or no.

2 So they that are to love inclined,
Sway'd by chance, not choice or art,
To the first that's fair, or kind,
Make a present of their heart;
'Tis not she that first we love,
But whom dying we approve.

3 To man, that was in th'ev'ning made,
Stars gave the first delight,
Admiring, in the gloomy shade,
Those little drops of light;

CHLORIS.

Hylas, O Hylas! why sit we mute,
Now that each bird saluteth the spring?
Wind up the slacken'd strings of thy lute,
Never canst thou want matter to sing;
For love thy breast does fill with such a fire,
That whatsoe'er is fair moves thy desire.

HYLAS.

Sweetest! you know, the sweetest of things
Of various flowers the bees do compose;
Yet no particular taste it brings
Of violet, woodbine, pink, or rose;
So love the result is of all the graces
Which flow from a thousand sev'ral faces.

CHLORIS.

1 It is not that I love you less,
Than when before your feet I lay;
But to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love, I keep away.

2 In vain, alas! for everything
Which I have known belong to you,
Your form does to my fancy bring,
And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

3 Who in the spring, from the new sun,
Already has a fever got,
Too late begins those shafts to shun,
Which Phoebus through his veins has shot;

4 Too late he would the pain assuage,
And to thick shadows does retire;
About with him he bears the rage,

1 Not caring to observe the wind,
Or the new sea explore,
Snatch'd from myself, how far behind
Already I behold the shore!

2 May not a thousand dangers sleep
In the smooth bosom of this deep?
No; 'tis so reckless and so clear,
That the rich bottom does appear
Paved all with precious things; not torn
From shipwreck'd vessels, but there born.

3 Sweetness, truth, and every grace
Which time and use are wont to teach,
The eye may in a moment reach,
And read distinctly in her face.