English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 238. To Althea from Prison |
| | | Richard Lovelace (1618–1658) |
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| WHEN Love with unconfinèd wings | |
| Hovers within my gates, | |
| And my divine Althea brings | |
| To whisper at the grates; | |
| When I lie tangled in her hair | 5 |
| And fetter’d to her eye, | |
| The birds that wanton in the air | |
| Know no such liberty. | |
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| When flowing cups run swiftly round | |
| With no allaying Thames, | 10 |
| Our careless heads with roses crown’d, | |
| Our hearts with loyal flames; | |
| When thirsty grief in wine we steep, | |
| When healths and draughts go free— | |
| Fishes that tipple in the deep | 15 |
| Know no such liberty. | |
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| When, linnet-like confinèd I | |
| With shriller throat shall sing | |
| The sweetness, mercy, majesty | |
| And glories of my King; | 20 |
| When I shall voice aloud how good | |
| He is, how great should be, | |
| Enlargèd winds, that curl the flood, | |
| Know no such liberty. | |
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| Stone walls do not a prison make, | 25 |
| Nor iron bars a cage; | |
| Minds innocent and quiet take | |
| That for an hermitage; | |
| If I have freedom in my love | |
| And in my soul am free, | 30 |
| Angels alone, that soar above, | |
| Enjoy such liberty. | |
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