| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Phillis | | Sonnet XXXIX. My matchless mistress, whose delicious eyes | | Thomas Lodge (1558–1625) |
| | | MY matchless mistress, whose delicious eyes | |
| Have power to perfect nature’s privy wants, | |
| Even when the sun in greatest pomp did rise, | |
| With pretty tread did press the tender plants. | |
| Each stalk, whilst forth she stalks, to kiss her feet | 5 |
| Is proud with pomp, and prodigal of sweet. | |
| Her fingers fair in favouring every flower | |
| That wooed their ivory for a wishèd touch, | |
| By chance—sweet chance—upon a blessed hour | |
| Did pluck the flower where Love himself did couch, | 10 |
| Where Love did couch by summer toil suppressed, | |
| And sought his sleep within so sweet a nest. | |
| The virgin’s hand that held the wanton thrall, | |
| Imprisoned him within the roseate leaves; | |
| And twixt her teats, with favour did install | 15 |
| The lovely rose, where Love his rest receives. | |
| The lad that felt the soft and sweet so nigh, | |
| Drowned in delights, disdains his liberty, | |
| And said, let Venus seek another son, | |
| For here my only matchless mother is; | 20 |
| From whose fair orient orbs the drink doth run, | |
| That deifies my state with greater bliss. | |
| This said, he sucked, my mistress blushing smiled, | |
| Since Love was both her prisoner and her child. | | | | |
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