1. FOR Heaven's sake, what d'you mean to do? Keep me, or let me go, one of the two? Youth and warm hours let me not idly loose, The little Time that Love does choose; If alwaies here I must not stay, Let me be gone, whilst yet 'tis Day; Lest I faint, and benighted lose my way. 2. 'Tis dismal, One so long to love In vaine; 'till to love more as vain must prove: To hunt so long on nimble prey, 'till wee Too weary to take others be; Alas, 'tis folly to remain, And wast our Army thus in vain, Before a City which will nere be tane. 3. At severall hopes wisely to fly, Ought not to be esteem'd Inconstancy; 'Tis more inconstant alwaies to pursue A thing that alwaies flies from you; For that at last may meet a bound; But no end can to this be found, 'Tis nought but a perpetual fruitlesse Round. 4. When it does Hardnesse meet and Pride, My Love does then rebound t' another side; But if it ought that's soft and yeelding hit; It lodges there, and stays in it. Whatever 'tis shall first love mee, That it my Heaven may truly be; I shall be sure to giv't Eternity. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WIDOW'S MITE by FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON ON MILTON'S PARADISE LOST by ANDREW MARVELL DEATH AND CUPID; AN ALLEGORY by JOHN GODFREY SAXE IMPRESSION DU MATIN by OSCAR WILDE SONG BEFORE SORROW by LOUISE A. BALDWIN BALLADE OF THE FOREST HAUNTERS by THEODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE THE GOOD SAMARITAN by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS: BOOK 1. TO WILLIAM, EARL OF PEMBROKE by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |