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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  To His Mistress Desirous to Go to Bed

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

To His Mistress Desirous to Go to Bed

Anonymous
 
(From John Cotgrave’s Wit’s Interpreter, 1655)

SLEEPY, my dear? yes, yes, I see
Morpheus is fallen in love with thee;
Morpheus, my worst of rivals, tries
To draw the curtains of thine eyes,
And fans them with his wing asleep;        5
Makes drowsy love to play bo-peep.
How prettily his feathers blow
Those fleshy shuttings to and fro!
O how he makes me tantalise
With those fair apples of thine eyes!        10
Equivocates and cheats me still,
Opening and shutting at his will,
Now both, now one! the doting god
Plays with thine eyes at even or odd.
My stammering tongue doubts which it might        15
Bid thee, good-morrow or good-night.
So thy eyes twinkle brighter far
Than the bright trembling evening star;
So a wax taper, burnt within
The socket, plays at out and in.        20
    Thus doth Morpheus court thine eye,
Meaning there all night to lie:
Cupid and he play Whoop, All-Hid!
The eye, their bed and coverlid.
Fairest, let me thy night-clothes air;        25
  Come, I’ll unlace thy stomacher.
Make me thy maiden chamber-man,
Or let me be thy warming-pan.
O that I might but lay my head
At thy bed’s feet i’th trundle-bed.        30