Devoutly to thy Closet-gods then pray,
That my wing’d ship may meet no Remora.
Those deities which circum-walk the seas,
And look upon our dreadful passages,
Will from all dangers re-deliver me,
For one drink-offering poured out by thee,
Mercy and Truth live with thee! and forbear,
In my short absence, to unsluice a tear;
But yet for love’s-sake, let thy lips do this,–
Give my dead picture one engendering kiss;
Work that to life, and let me ever dwell
In thy remembrance, Julia. So farewell.
That whene’er I woo, I findVirgins coy, but not unkind.Let me, when I kiss a maid,Taste her lips, so overlaidWith love’s sirop, that I mayIn your temple, when I pray,Kiss the altar, and confessThere’s in love no bitterness.
That timber tall, which three-score lustres stoodThe proud dictator of the state-like wood,I mean the sovereign of all plants, the oak,Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver’s stroke.
But with my finger pointed toThe lips of Julia.Some ask’d how Pearls did grow, and where:Then spoke I to my girl,To part her lips, and shew me thereThe quarrelets of Pearl.
Bind up his senses with your numbers, soAs to entrance his pain, or cure his woe.Fall gently, gently, and a-while him keepLost in the civil wilderness of sleep:That done, then let him, dispossess’d of pain,Like to a slumbering bride, awake again.
But forwith bade my Julia showA bud in either cheek.
Though they be few in number, I’m content;If otherwise, I stand indifferent,Nor makes it matter, Nestor’s years to tell,If man lives long, and if he live not well.A multitude of days still heaped onSeldom brings order, but confusion.Might I make choice, long life should be with-stood;Nor would I care how short it were, if good;Which…
