| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | A Devout Lover | | By Thomas Randolph (1605–1635) |
| | | I HAVE a mistress, for perfections rare | |
| In every eye, but in my thoughts most fair. | |
| Like tapers on the altar shine her eyes; | |
| Her breath is the perfume of sacrifice; | |
| And wheresoe’er my fancy would begin, | 5 |
| Still her perfection lets religion in. | |
| We sit and talk, and kiss away the hours | |
| As chastely as the morning dews kiss flowers: | |
| I touch her, like my beads, with devout care, | |
| And come unto my courtship as my prayer. | 10 | | | |
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