Or on food were your thoughts placed,
Bring you nectar, for a taste:
Would you have all these in one,
Name my mistress, and 'tis done.
THE SPRING
Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes; and now no more the frost
Candies the grass or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbèd earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo and the bumble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful Spring:
The valleys, hills, and woods, in rich array,
Welcome the coming of the longed-for May.
Now all things smile; only my love doth lower;
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice which still doth hold
Her heart congealed, and makes her pity cold.
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fireside; but, in the cooler shade,
Amyntas now doth with his Cloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season—only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January.
THE INQUIRY[1]
Amongst the myrtles as I walked,
Love and my sighs together talked;
Tell me (said I in deep distress)
Where I may find my shepherdess?
Thou fool (said Love), know'st thou not this,—
In everything that's good she is:
In yonder tulip go and seek;
There thou mayst find her lip, her cheek.
In yonder enameled pansy by,
There thou shalt have her curious eye;
In bloom of peach, in rosy bud,
There wave the streamers of her blood;
In brightest lilies that there stands,
The emblems of her whiter hands;
In yonder rising hill there swells
Such sweets as in her bosom dwells.