For each year their price is more, Love, like spring-tides full and high, But each tide does less supply, If a flow in age appear, 'Tis but rain, and runs not clear. John Dryden [1631-1700] SONG LOVE still has something of the sea, They are becalmed in clearest days, One while they seem to touch the port, At first Disdain and Pride they fear, By such degrees to joy they come, "Tis cruel to prolong a pain; Echoes An hundred thousand oaths your fears, I could not deeper love. 471 Charles Sedley [1639?-1701] THE VINE THE wine of Love is music, And the feast of Love is song: And when Love sits down to the banquet, Love sits long: Sits long and arises drunken, But not with the feast and the wine; He reeleth with his own heart, That great, rich Vine. James Thomson [1834-1882] ECHOES How sweet the answer Echo makes To Music at night When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes, And far away o'er lawns and lakes Goes answering light! Yet Love hath echoes truer far And far more sweet Than e'er, beneath the moonlight's star, Of horn or lute or soft guitar The songs repeat. 'Tis when the sigh,--in youth sincere And only then, The sigh that's breathed for one to hear Is by that one, that only Dear Breathed back again. Thomas Moore [1779-1852] CUPID STUNG CUPID once upon a bed Of roses laid his weary head; Within the leaves a slumbering bee. The hapless heart that's stung by thee!" Thomas Moore [1779-1852] CUPID DROWNED T'OTHER day, as I was twining By the wings I picked him up Of my wine I plunged and sank him, Then what d'ye think I did?—I drank him. Faith, I thought him dead. Not he! There he lives with ten-fold glee; "In the Days of Old" And now this moment with his wings SONG 473 Leigh Hunt [1784-1859] OH! say not woman's heart is bought When first her gentle bosom knows Oh! say not woman's false as fair, Still seeking flowers more sweet and rare, Ah! no, the love that first can warm No second passion e'er can charm, She loves, and loves for ever. Thomas Love Peacock [1785-1866] "IN THE DAYS OF OLD". From "Crotchet Castle" IN the days of old Lovers felt true passion, Now the charms of gold, Through the forests wild, If the damsel smiled Now one day's caprice Love is bought and sold. Wiser were the lovers In the days of old. Thomas Love Peacock [1785-1866] SONG How delicious is the winning Yet remember, 'midst your wooing, Love he comes, and Love he tarries, Longest stays, when sorest chidden; Laughs and flies, when pressed and bidden. Bind the sea to slumber stilly, Bind its odor to the lily, Bind the aspen ne'er to quiver, Then bind Love to last forever! Love's a fire that needs renewal Of fresh beauty for its fuel: Love's wing moults when caged and captured, Only free, he soars enraptured. |