Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume II. Love. 1904. | | | | II. Love’s Nature | | Song: “Love still has something” | | Sir Charles Sedley (1639–1701) |
| | | LOVE still has something of the sea, | |
| From whence his Mother rose; | |
| No time his slaves from love can free, | |
| Nor give their thoughts repose. | |
| |
| They are becalmed in clearest days, | 5 |
| And in rough weather tost; | |
| They wither under cold delays, | |
| Or are in tempests lost. | |
| |
| One while they seem to touch the port, | |
| Then straight into the main | 10 |
| Some angry wind in cruel sport | |
| Their vessel drives again. | |
| |
| At first disdain and pride they fear, | |
| Which if they chance to ’scape, | |
| Rivals and falsehood soon appear | 15 |
| In a more dreadful shape. | |
| |
| By such degrees to joy they come, | |
| And are so long withstood, | |
| So slowly they receive the sum, | |
| It hardly does them good. | 20 |
| |
| ’T is cruel to prolong a pain, | |
| And to defer a bliss, | |
| Believe me, gentle Hermione, | |
| No less inhuman is. | |
| |
| An hundred thousand oaths your fears | 25 |
| Perhaps would not remove, | |
| And if I gazed a thousand years, | |
| I could no deeper love. | |
| |
| ’T is fitter much for you to guess | |
| Than for me to explain, | 30 |
| But grant, oh! grant that happiness, | |
| Which only does remain. | | | | |
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