T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
She Lay All Naked in Her Bed
Anonymous(Wit and Drollery, 1656; Merry Drollery, 1661) |
SHE lay all naked in her bed, | |
| And I myself lay by; | |
| No Veil but Curtains about her spread, | |
| No covering but I: | |
| Her head upon her shoulders seeks | 5 |
| To hang in careless wise, | |
| All full of blushes was her cheeks, | |
| And of wishes were her eyes. | |
| Her blood still fresh into her face, | |
| As on a message came, | 10 |
| To say that in another place | |
| It meant another game; | |
| Her cherry Lip moist, plump, and fair, | |
| Millions of Kisses crown, | |
| Which ripe and uncropt dangled there, | 15 |
| And weigh the branches down. | |
| Her Breasts, that swell’d so plump and high, | |
| Bred pleasant pain in me, | |
| For all the world I do defie | |
| The like felicity; | 20 |
| Her thighs and belly, soft and fair, | |
| To me were only shown: | |
| To have seen such meat, and not to have eat, | |
| Would have angered any stone. | |
| Her knees lay upward gently bent, | 25 |
| And all lay hollow under, | |
| As if on easy terms they meant | |
| To fall unforc’d asunder; | |
| Just so the Cyprian Queen did lie, | |
| Expecting in her bower; | 30 |
| When too long stay, had kept the boy | |
| Beyond his promis’d hour. | |
| “Dull clown,” quoth she, “why dost delay | |
| Such proffered bliss to take? | |
| Canst thou find out no other way | 35 |
| Similitudes to make?” | |
| Mad with delight I thundering | |
| Threw my Arms about her, | |
| But pox upon ’t ’twas but a dream. | |
| And so I lay without her. | 40 |