From noise of scare-fires rest ye free,

Safely guard us, now and aye,From the blast that burns by day;And those sounds that us affrightIn the dead of dampish night;Drive all hurtful fiends us fro,By the time the cocks first crow.

Must I here stayBecause you’re slow,And will continue so;–Troth, lady, no.I scorn to beA slave to state;And since I’m free,I will not wait,Henceforth at such a rate,For needy fate.If you desireMy spark should glow,The peeping fireYou must blow;Or I shall quickly growTo frost, or snow.

And whose the pretty prize should beThey vow’d to ask the Gods.Which Venus hearing, thither came,And for their boldness stript them;And taking thence from each his flame,With rods of myrtle whipt them.Which done, to still their wanton cries,When quiet grown she’d seen them,She kiss’d and wiped their dove-like eyes,And gave the bag between them.

That fleet of lackeys which do runBefore thy swift postilion;Those strong-hoof’d mules, which we beholdRein’d in with purple, pearl, and gold,And shed with silver, prove to beThe drawers of the axle-tree;Thy wife, thy children, and the stateOf Persian looms and antique plate:–All these, and more, shall then affordNo joy to thee, their sickly lord.

And ye the walks have beenWhere maids have spent their hours.You have beheld how theyWith wicker arks did come,To kiss and bear awayThe richer cowslips home.You’ve heard them sweetly sing,And seen them in a round;Each virgin, like a spring,With honeysuckles crown’d.But now, we see none here,Whose silvery feet did treadAnd with dishevell’d hairAdorn’d this smoother…

Alas! if kissing be of plagues the worst,We’ll wish in hell we had been last and first.

Be she witty, more than wise,Pure enough, though not precise;Be she showing in her dress,Like a civil wilderness,That the curious may detectOrder in a sweet neglect;Be she rolling in her eye,Tempting all the passers by;And each ringlet of her hair,An enchantment, or a snare,For to catch the lookers on;But herself held fast by none.Let her…

To drink-in notes and numbers, suchAs blessed souls can’t hear too muchThen melted down, there let me lieEntranced, and lost confusedly;And by thy music strucken mute,Die, and be turn’d into a Lute.

Say, are thy medicines made to beHelps to all others but to me?I’ll leave thee, and to Pansies come:Comforts you’ll afford me some:You can ease my heart, and doWhat Love could ne’er be brought unto.

But every line and limb diffused thenceA fair and unfamiliar excellence;So that the more I look, the more I proveThere’s still more cause why I the more should love.