But love is such a mystery
I cannot find it out;
For when I think I'm best resolved,
I then am most in doubt.
Then farewell love, and farewell woe,
I will no longer pine;
For I'll believe I have her heart
As much as she hath mine.
—Sir John Suckling
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage,
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,—
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
—Richard Lovelace
Appelles' Song
Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses,—Cupid paid;
He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother's doves, and teams of sparrows:
Loses them, too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on's cheek (but none knows how);
With these the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise;
O Love, has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?
—John Lyly
To Althea, from Prison
When love, with unconfined wings,
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fetter'd to her eye—
The birds that wanton in the air,
Know no such liberty.
—Richard Lovelace