Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

I. Admiration

On a Girdle

Edmund Waller (1606–1687)

THAT which her slender waist confined

Shall now my joyful temples bind;

No monarch but would give his crown,

His arms might do what this hath done.

It was my heaven’s extremest sphere,

The pale which held that lovely deer:

My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,

Did all within this circle move.

A narrow compass! and yet there

Dwelt all that ’s good, and all that ’s fair.

Give me but what this ribbon bound,

Take all the rest the sun goes round!