Thou God of love, thou ever blest!
Pity my suff'ring state;
When wilt thou set my soul at rest
From men of cruel hate?

Hard lot of mine! my days are cast
Among the sons of strife,
Whose never-ceasing insults waste
My golden hours of life.

Oh! might I fly to change my place,
How would I choose to dwell
In some wide, lonesome wilderness,
And leave these gates of hell!

Peace is the blessing that I seek:
How lovely are its charms!
I am for peace; but, when I speak,
They all declare for arms.

How lovely are Thy tabernacles,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul yearneth, yea, even pineth for
the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy
unto the living God.
Yea, the sparrow hath found a house,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
Where she may lay her young;
Thine altars, O Lord of hosts,
My King, and my God —
Happy are they that dwell in Thy
house,
They are ever praising Thee. Selah.

PART I.

M Y heart a noble theme indites:
What I compose concerns the king:
My tongue the swistest pen that writes
Outvies, while I attempt to sing.

None among all the human race
Like thee for loveliness appears:
Thy lips, bedew'd with heavenly grace,
Ravish each wondring soul that hears.
For God will ever from on high
His constant blessings thee afford.
O mighty one, upon thy thigh
Make haste to gird thy conquering sword.

Thy majesty and glory show:

SILENCE

The purple falls between the pines,
The sun that blanched Arundel walls,
Remembering them as he declines,
With purple fills his airy halls.
We drove all day; and all day long
Of Love and longing long we spoke;
And sang so often ballad and song,
The crescent moon cannot evoke
Another word; though Beauty calls
There is no word that can be said.
If Hesperus unhailed shines on,
O do not dream that Love is dead.
The hand I take is not withdrawn,
Between the pines the purple falls.

This craving 'tis that's Venus unto us:
From this, engender all the lures of love,
From this, O first hath into human hearts
Trickled that drop of joyance which ere long
Is by chill care succeeded. Since, indeed,
Though she thou lovest now be far away,
Yet idol-images of her are near
And the sweet name is floating in thy ear.
But it behooves to flee those images;
And scare afar whatever feeds thy love;
And turn elsewhere thy mind; and vent the sperm,
Within thee gathered, into sundry bodies,

The Argument

The swo[u]nding Swaine recovered is
By th' Goddesse; his soule rapting blisse:
There mutuàll conference, and how
Her service she doth him allow.

1

Soft-sleeping Venus waked with the fall,
Looking behind, the sinking Boy espies,
With all she starts, and wondereth withall,
She thinkes that there her faire Adonis dyes,
And more she thinkes the more the Boy she eyes:
 So stepping neerer, up begins to reare him;
 And now with love himselfe she will confer him,

When Atyches with better sight I eye,
Some powre me thinks beyond humanity,
Some heavenly power within his bosome lyes
And plainely looks through th' windowes of his eyes.
Thalander , if that soules departed rest
In other men, thou livest in his brest,
He is more then he seemes, or else — but see!
My love, my hate, my joy, my miserie.
Glau. Perindus , whither turnst thou? if thy wandring love
My love eschew, yet nothing canst thou see
Why thou shouldst flye me, I am no monster, friend,

I
Each Moment of the long-liv'd Day,
Lesbia for me does backward pray,
And rails at me sincerely;
Yet I dare pawn my Life, my Eyes,
My Soul, and all that Mortals prize,
That Lesbia loves me dearly.
II

Why shou'd you thus conclude, you'll say,
Faith 'tis my own beloved Way,
And thus I hourly prove her;
Yet let me all those Curses share
That Heav'n can give, or Man can bear,
If I don't strangely love her.

I hate and love. Why? You may ask but
It beats me. I feel it done to me, and ache.

None could ever say that she,
Lesbia! was so loved by me.
Never all the world around
Faith so true as mine was found.
If no longer it endures
(Would it did!) the fault is yours.
I can never think again
Well of you: I try in vain.
But . . . be false . . . do what you will.--
Lesbia! I must love you still.