Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Edmund Waller (1606–1687)

The Marriage of the Dwarfs

DESIGN or chance makes others wive,

But nature did this match contrive;

Eve might as well have Adam fled,

As she denied her little bed

To him, for whom Heaven seemed to frame

And measure out this only dame.

Thrice happy is that humble pair,

Beneath the level of all care,

Over whose heads those arrows fly

Of sad distrust and jealousy,

Securèd in as high extreme

As if the world held none but them.

To him the fairest nymphs do show

Like moving mountains topped with snow,

And every man a Polypheme

Doth to his Galatea seem;

None may presume her faith to prove,

He profers death who profers love.

Ah! Chloris, that kind nature thus

From all the world had severed us,

Creating for ourselves us two,

As love has me for only you.