Now then, love me; Time may take
    Thee before my time away;
  Of this need we’ll virtue make
    And learn love before we may. 
  So we win of doubtful fate;
    And if good to us she meant,
  We that good shall antedate. 
    Or, if ill, that ill prevent.

MARVELL.

* * * * *

  Hear ye virgins, and I’ll teach,
  What the times of old did preach: 
  Rosamond was in a tower
  Kept, as Danae, in a tower;
  But yet love, who subtle is,
  Crept to that, and came to this: 
  Be ye lock’d up like to these,
  Or the rich Hesperides: 
  Or those babies in your eyes,
  In their crystal nurseries;
  Notwithstanding love will win,
  Or else force a passage in;
  And as coy be as you can. 
  Gifts will get ye, or the man.

HERRICK.

* * * * *

Great Venus, queen of beauty and of grace. 
The joy of gods and men, that under sky
Dost fairest shine, and most adorn thy place,
That with thy smiling look dost pacify
The raging seas, and mak’st the storms to fly: 
Thee, goddess, thee the winds, the clouds do fear,
And when thou spreadst thy mantle forth on high,
The waters play, and pleasant lands appear,
And heaven laughs, and all the world shows joyous chear.

* * * * *

—­All the world by thee at first was made,
And daily yet thou dost the same repair,
Ne ought on earth that merry is and glad,
Ne ought on earth that lovely is and fair,
But thou the same for pleasure didst prepare. 
Thou art the root of all that joyous is,
Great God of men and women, queen of th’ air,
Mother of laughter, and well-spring of bliss,
O graunt that of my love at last I may not miss.

Fairy Queen.—­SPENSER.

* * * * *

    As men tormented with a burning fever,
  Dream that with drink they ’suage their grievous thirst,
    But when they wake they find their thirst persever,
  And to be greater than it was at first;
    So she whose thoughts from love sleep could not sever,
  Dreamt of that thing for which she ’wake did thirst;
    But waking, felt and found it as before,
  Her hope still less, and her desire still more.

SIR J. HARRINGTON.

* * * * *

——­ Love is only root and crop of care, The body’s foe, the heart’s annoy and cause of pleasures rare The sickness of the mind and fountain of unrest, The gulf of guile, the pit of pain, of grief the hollow chest; A fiery frost, a flame that frozen is with ice, A heavy burden light to bear, a virtue fraught with vice; It is a worldlike peace, a safety seeing dread, A deep despair annexed to hope, a fancy that is fed, Sweet poison for his taste, a port Charybdis like, A Scylla for his safety, though a lion that is meek.

TURBERVILLE.