love poetry

Health, Bread , with Life , my God mee sends,
My Consort, Father, Friends;
Employment , with Free Speech and Fame ,
And Books to feed the Same.

For This , but most, for thy dear Son ,
My Thanks are now begun .
Help mee, Good God, to love and praise ,
And serve thee all my Dayes.

The Sin of my First Father is
Mine, the Just Law doth say,
The Sin of a Vile Nature , This
Doth unto me Convey.

Innumerable Sins I do
Hence madly Perpetrate;
Sins , which the Good I Have and Know;
Doth sadly aggravate.

But, O my Precious CHRIST, I see,
THOU art my Surety made:
A Full Obedience was by Thee
To Thy Great Father Paid.

(Double ballade sur le mesme propos)

Go, love as much as love you will,
And forth to feasts and banquets stray,
Yet at the end there comes the bill,
And broken heads at break of day.
For light loves make men beasts of prey,
They bent towards idols, Solomon,
From Samson took his eyes away.
Happy is he not so undone.

For this did Orpheus, who could thrill
With pipe and flute the mountains grey,
Come near to death where stands to kill
Four-headed Cerberus at bay;
Also Narcissus, fair as May,

For a song, or a dance, over all the gay plain,
Young Damon was justly esteem'd the best swain;
Yet a great imperfection his mind had impress'd,
He thought beauty a trifle and love but a jest.

As often young Collin to him wou'd repair,
And sighing relate all his anguish and care;
He laugh'd at his folly, and said from his breast,
He thought beauty a trifle, and love but a jest.

Sly Cupid determin'd to take down his pride,
Who impiously dar'd sacred love to deride;
An arrow well aim'd sent twang at his breast,

Recitative .

As on a flowry bank young Thirsis lay;
Thirsis the young, the airy, and the gay,
Who lov'd fair Phaebe with a constant heart,
Devoid of flattery, and devoid of art;
By love inspir'd, he thus unloos'd his tongue,
And to the Cyprian deity he sung.

AIR

Goddess of the Cyprian grove,
Queen of beauty, queen of love;
To thy shrine behold I bend,

Bethink thee, love, what joy it is
When gales of passion blow,
If that fierce ecstasy of bliss
Two souls united know.

No noise of war, no thought of fear,
No shame shall make us part,
If once I take my dearest dear
And clasp her to my heart.

May Vulcan's chains be on us laid
When that glad hour has come,
Such as he erst in Lemnos made
Within his smithy home.

Together bound may it be mine
To press thee in my arms,
To feel thy hands about me twine
And know thy loving charms.

Again my lamp is burning dim,
Again the weary wick I trim,
And yet my sweet delays.
By the great queen of love she swore
To-night would see her at my door
But now she heedless stays.
Ah, would the flame that burns my breast
Might with my lamp sink soft to rest!

Fie on boys! In women's arms
We shall find more lasting charms.
Nor do I love the hair that shows
All too soon on cheeks of rose.
Youths have lost their beauty when
They begin to look like men.

Now you have thrown your pride away
And yielded to the Cyprian's dart,
I in your arms a captive stay,
Enfolded to your heart.

Body and soul together meet
And mingle in love's swelling wave,
Nor while I fell these fetters sweet
Shall I my freedom crave.

The blaze that scorched my flesh of old
Is quenched and dim: I die of cold.
Love's furnace panting in its greed
Has now but bones whereon to feed,
And my poor heart, to ashes turned,
Has naught within it left unburned.
E'en as some altar at the close of day,
Its victim spent, untended dies away.