Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Edmund Waller. 1606–1687

304. On a Girdle

THAT which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this has done.
It was my Heaven’s extremest sphere,	5
The pale which held that lovely deer:
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that ‘s good, and all that ‘s fair!	10
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round!