| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910. | | | | Love Still Has Something of the Sea | | By Sir Charles Sedley (1639–1701) |
| | | LOVE still has something of the sea, | |
| From whence his mother rose; | |
| No time his slaves from love can free, | |
| Nor give their thoughts repose. | |
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| They are becalmed in clearest days, | 5 |
| And in rough weather tossed; | |
| They wither under cold delays, | |
| Or are in tempests lost. | |
| |
| One while they seem to touch the port, | |
| Then straight into the main | 10 |
| Some angry wind in cruel sport | |
| The vessel drives again. | |
| |
| At first Disdain and Pride they fear, | |
| Which, if they chance to ’scape, | |
| Rivals and Falsehood soon appear | 15 |
| In a more dreadful shape. | |
| |
| By such degrees to joy they come, | |
| And are so long withstood, | |
| So slowly they receive the sum, | |
| It hardly does them good. | 20 |
| |
| ’Tis cruel to prolong a pain, | |
| And to defer a joy, | |
| Believe me, gentle Celemene, | |
| Offends the wingèd boy. | |
| |
| An hundred thousand oaths your fears | 25 |
| Perhaps would not remove, | |
| And if I gazed a thousand years | |
| I could no deeper love. | | | | |
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