Love-sick I am, and must endure
A desperate grief, that finds no cure.
A desperate grief, that finds no cure.
Robert Herrick
HIS WISH.
It is sufficient if we pray
To Jove, who gives and takes away:
Let him the land and living find;
Let me alone to fit the mind.
154. HIS PROTESTATION TO PERILLA.
Noonday and midnight shall at once be seen:
Trees, at one time, shall be both sere and green:
Fire and water shall together lie
In one self-sweet-conspiring sympathy:
Summer and winter shall at one time show
Ripe ears of corn, and up to th' ears in snow:
Seas shall be sandless; fields devoid of grass;
Shapeless the world, as when all chaos was,
Before, my dear Perilla, I will be
False to my vow, or fall away from thee.
155. LOVE PERFUMES ALL PARTS.
If I kiss Anthea's breast,
There I smell the phoenix nest:
If her lip, the most sincere
Altar of incense I smell there--
Hands, and thighs, and legs are all
Richly aromatical.
Goddess Isis can't transfer
Musks and ambers more from her:
Nor can Juno sweeter be,
When she lies with Jove, than she.
156. TO JULIA.
Permit me, Julia, now to go away;
Or by thy love decree me here to stay.
If thou wilt say that I shall live with thee,
Here shall my endless tabernacle be:
If not, as banish'd, I will live alone
There where no language ever yet was known.
157. ON HIMSELF.
Love-sick I am, and must endure
A desperate grief, that finds no cure.
Ah me! I try; and trying, prove
_No herbs have power to cure love. _
Only one sovereign salve I know,
And that is death, the end of woe.
158. VIRTUE IS SENSIBLE OF SUFFERING.
Though a wise man all pressures can sustain,
His virtue still is sensible of pain:
Large shoulders though he has, and well can bear,
He feels when packs do pinch him, and the where.
159. THE CRUEL MAID.
And cruel maid, because I see
You scornful of my love and me,
I'll trouble you no more; but go
My way where you shall never know
What is become of me: there I
Will find me out a path to die,
Or learn some way how to forget
You and your name for ever: yet,
Ere I go hence, know this from me,
What will, in time, your fortune be:
This to your coyness I will tell,
And, having spoke it once, farewell.
The lily will not long endure,
Nor the snow continue pure;
The rose, the violet, one day,
See, both these lady-flowers decay:
And you must fade as well as they.
And it may chance that Love may turn,
And, like to mine, make your heart burn
And weep to see't; yet this thing do,
That my last vow commends to you:
When you shall see that I am dead,
For pity let a tear be shed;
And, with your mantle o'er me cast,
Give my cold lips a kiss at last:
If twice you kiss you need not fear
That I shall stir or live more here.
Next, hollow out a tomb to cover
Me--me, the most despised lover,
And write thereon: _This, reader, know:
Love kill'd this man_. No more, but so.
160. TO DIANEME.
It is sufficient if we pray
To Jove, who gives and takes away:
Let him the land and living find;
Let me alone to fit the mind.
154. HIS PROTESTATION TO PERILLA.
Noonday and midnight shall at once be seen:
Trees, at one time, shall be both sere and green:
Fire and water shall together lie
In one self-sweet-conspiring sympathy:
Summer and winter shall at one time show
Ripe ears of corn, and up to th' ears in snow:
Seas shall be sandless; fields devoid of grass;
Shapeless the world, as when all chaos was,
Before, my dear Perilla, I will be
False to my vow, or fall away from thee.
155. LOVE PERFUMES ALL PARTS.
If I kiss Anthea's breast,
There I smell the phoenix nest:
If her lip, the most sincere
Altar of incense I smell there--
Hands, and thighs, and legs are all
Richly aromatical.
Goddess Isis can't transfer
Musks and ambers more from her:
Nor can Juno sweeter be,
When she lies with Jove, than she.
156. TO JULIA.
Permit me, Julia, now to go away;
Or by thy love decree me here to stay.
If thou wilt say that I shall live with thee,
Here shall my endless tabernacle be:
If not, as banish'd, I will live alone
There where no language ever yet was known.
157. ON HIMSELF.
Love-sick I am, and must endure
A desperate grief, that finds no cure.
Ah me! I try; and trying, prove
_No herbs have power to cure love. _
Only one sovereign salve I know,
And that is death, the end of woe.
158. VIRTUE IS SENSIBLE OF SUFFERING.
Though a wise man all pressures can sustain,
His virtue still is sensible of pain:
Large shoulders though he has, and well can bear,
He feels when packs do pinch him, and the where.
159. THE CRUEL MAID.
And cruel maid, because I see
You scornful of my love and me,
I'll trouble you no more; but go
My way where you shall never know
What is become of me: there I
Will find me out a path to die,
Or learn some way how to forget
You and your name for ever: yet,
Ere I go hence, know this from me,
What will, in time, your fortune be:
This to your coyness I will tell,
And, having spoke it once, farewell.
The lily will not long endure,
Nor the snow continue pure;
The rose, the violet, one day,
See, both these lady-flowers decay:
And you must fade as well as they.
And it may chance that Love may turn,
And, like to mine, make your heart burn
And weep to see't; yet this thing do,
That my last vow commends to you:
When you shall see that I am dead,
For pity let a tear be shed;
And, with your mantle o'er me cast,
Give my cold lips a kiss at last:
If twice you kiss you need not fear
That I shall stir or live more here.
Next, hollow out a tomb to cover
Me--me, the most despised lover,
And write thereon: _This, reader, know:
Love kill'd this man_. No more, but so.
160. TO DIANEME.
