Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Douglas B. W. Sladen b. 1856

From the Drama of “Charles II”

COME and kiss me, mistress Beauty,

I will give you all that ’s due t’ye.

I will taste your rosebud lips

Daintily as the bee sips;

At your bonny eyes I ’ll look

Like a scholar at his book:

On my bosom you shall rest,

Like a robin on her nest:

Round my body you shall twine,

I ’ll be elm, and you be vine:

In a bumper of your breath

I would drain a draught of death;

In the tangles of your hair

I ’d be hanged and never care.

Then come kiss me, mistress Beauty,

I will give you all that ’s due t’ ye.