Unveil thine arms, my JULIA, where
I may behold thine oxters, fair,
Frefh-flowered with thy native hair.
Sweet verdure of thy underlawn,
Thy garden grows untamed, unfhorn,
With golden glifters in the dawn.
Thy fecret arbour, daint with crulles,
Bedeawed by fpangling fweaty pearles,
Moved by the breeze in fportive fwirles -
There VENUS is, in full plain fight,
& winged CUPID doth alight,
& pleafure is, and all delight,
& there, I wis, a fhepheard may
Tende gently to his flocke all day
& finge a laefie lang'rous lay.
There PAN his oaten reed doth play,
& MARS puts fword and fhield away
In that moft high félicité.
Unveil thine arms, my JULIA, where
I may behold thine oxters, fair,
To His Allotment Mistress
ReplyDelete'Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace...'
Marvin 'Marvellous' Marrow
I marvel, Master Marrow, at thy Magnificent Magniloquence!
ReplyDelete