WALLER, Edmund

Go, lovely rose!

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that’s young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That hadst thou sprung

In deserts, where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair

Old Age

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;

So calm are we when passions are no more.

For then we know how vain it was to boast

Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes

Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,

Lets in new light through chinks that Time hath made:

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become

As they draw near to their eternal home.

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view

That stand upon the threshold of the new.

The Self Banished

It is not that I love you less

Than when before your feet I lay,

But to prevent the sad increase

Of hopeless love, I keep away.

In vain (alas!) for everything

Which I have known belong to you,

Your form does to my fancy bring,

And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

Who in the spring from the new sun

Already has a fever got,

Too late begins those shafts to shun,

Which Phœbus through his veins has shot.

Too late he would the pain assuage,

And to thick shadows does retire;

About with him he bears the rage,

And in his tainted blood the fire.

But vow’d I have, and never must

Your banish’d servant trouble you;

For if I break, you may distrust

The vow I made to love you, too.