English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 260. Chloris |
| | | Sir Charles Sedley (1639(?)–1701) |
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| AH, Chloris! could I now but sit | |
| As unconcern’d as when | |
| Your infant beauty could beget | |
| No happiness or pain! | |
| When I the dawn used to admire, | 5 |
| And praised the coming day, | |
| I little thought the rising fire | |
| Would take my rest away. | |
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| Your charms in harmless childhood lay | |
| Like metals in a mine; | 10 |
| Age from no face takes more away | |
| Than youth conceal’d in thine. | |
| But as your charms insensibly | |
| To their perfection prest, | |
| So love as unperceived did fly, | 15 |
| And centre’d in my breast. | |
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| My passion with your beauty grew, | |
| While Cupid at my heart | |
| Still as his mother favour’d you | |
| Threw a new flaming dart: | 20 |
| Each gloried in their wanton part; | |
| To make a lover, he | |
| Employ’d the utmost of his art— | |
| To make a beauty, she. | |
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