poems about love

C ORINNA , in the bloom of youth,
Was coy to every lover;
Regardless of the tenderest truth,
No soft complaints could move her:
Mankind was hers, and at her feet
Lay prostrate and adoring,
The witty, valiant, rich and great
Alike in vain imploring.

But now grown old she would repair
The loss of time and pleasure;
With willing looks, and wanton air,
Inviting every gazer.

But love's a summer flower, that dies
With the first weather's changing.
The lover, like the swallow, flies

When Sylvia is kind, and Love plays in her eyes,
I think 'tis no morning till Sylvia does rise;
Of Sylvia the hills and the valleys all ring,
Her beauty's the subject each shepherd does sing:
But, if she proves cruel, how little will move
Those charms which inspired us with raptures of love?
Thy rigour, dear Sylvia, will shorten thy reign,
And make our bright goddess a mortal again.

Love heightens our joys; he's the ease of our care;
Inspires the valiant and crowns all the Fair:
O seize his soft wings then before 'tis too late,

T HYRSIS , unjustly you complain,
And tax my tender heart
With want of pity for your pain,
Or sense of your desert.

By secret and mysterious springs,
Alas! our passions move;
We women are fantastic things,
That like before we love.

You may be handsome, and have wit,
Be secret and well-bred,
The person love must to us fit,
He only can succeed.

Some die, yet never are believed;
Others we trust too soon,
Helping ourselves to be deceived,
And proud to be undone.

Love and Death o' th' way once meeting,
Having passed a friendly greeting,
Sleep their weary eye-lids closing,
Lay them down themselves reposing.
Love, whom divers cares molested,
Could not sleep, but while Death rested,
All in haste away he posts him,
But his haste full dearly costs him;
For it chanced that going to sleeping
Both did give their darts in keeping
Unto Night, who, Error's mother,
Blindly knowing not one from t'other,
Gave Love Death's, and ne'er perceived it,
Whilst as blindly Love received it;

IT is a punishment to love,
And not to love a punishment doth prove;
But of all pains there's no such pain
As 'tis to love, and not be loved again.

Till sixteen, parents we obey;
After sixteen, men steal our hearts away:
How wretched are we women grown,
Whose wills, whose minds, whose hearts are ne'er our own?

L OVE'S far more powerful than a king,
And wiser than most statesmen are:
For it commands him, and doth spring
In them strange thoughts; in both much care
(Beside th' affairs o' th' Commonwealth)

To crouch and to obey. Nay more;
It makes them lose all joy and health,
And not be the men they were before;
Until wise love, all powerful love,
The gracious physician prove.

Tell me, Jove, should she disdain,
Whether were it greater pain,
Silent in thy flames to die,
Or say I love, and she deny.

Flames suppressed do higher grow;
Should she scorn when she does know
Thy affection, thou shalt prove
A glorious martyrdom for love.

Better to Love's mercy bow,
She may burn as well as thou:
On then timorous heart proceed,
For wounds are death that inward bleed.

L AURINELLA {E GLOGUE I} OF TRUE AND CHAST L OUE

Colliden. Wilkin.

The Shepheard Colliden, who ere him know,
(Who know him not that Shepheards liues do fare?)
He that was wont with siluer sheep-hooke goe,
And by his belt the silken scrip to weare,
A iolly Shep-heard to the outward showe,
Till sadly crazed with loues youthfull care,
Low kept his flock in humble vale where hye
Upon a hill kept Laurinella by.

Scarce cou'd he looke so hye, so weake was he,

Half way the hill, near to those aged trees,
Whose insides are as hives for lab'ring bees,
(As who should say, before their roots were dead,
For good work's sake and alms they harboured
Those whom nought else did cover but the skies:)
A path, untrodden but of beasts, there lies,
Directing to a cave in yonder glade,
Where all this forest's citizens for shade
At noon-time come, and are the first, I think,
That (running through that cave) my waters drink:
Within this rock there sits a woful wight,

Come , lovely boy unto my court,
And leave these uncouth woods, and all,
That feed thy fancy with love's gall,
But keep away the honey and the sport. Chorus of Graces:

Come unto me,
And with variety
Thou shalt be fed; which Nature loves, and I.

There is no music in a voice
That is but one, and still the same.
Inconstancy is but a name
To fright poor lovers from a better choice. Chorus: