LAWES, William / ANONYMOUS

Love I Obey

Love, I obey ; shoot home thy dart.

'Tis for a bleeding, wounded heart

Whom oft I've heard to murmur tones

For me would move the ruthless stones.

Fly! Fly! Why stays my tardy sense

To quench that flaming influence,

Which else to cinders straight will burn

All virtue in one sacred urn?

Virgin more soft than vestal fire

That shoots into us chaste desire,

Can'st thou forgive a savage beast

That sacrifices now his breast?

Why dost thou only look and sigh

As if it breathed forth had thy life,

Oh, tyrant Love? For see the red

Is turned to paleness; beauty's dead.

May I forsaken be of all

Unpitied find no funeral;

My ashes through the world be blown,

For love is dead, and beauty's gone.

Now in the sad declension of thy time

Now in the sad declension of thy time,

When all the world forsakes and lays thee by,

I but unveil my love, masked in the prime

Of thy transcendent glories. For mine eye,

Judge thee not woman but a deity;

And till those roses blushing on thy cheek,

Those lilies and those violets were seen

To wither thus, till all those sweets we seek

In ruin lay, I could ne'er begin

To court thee without hazard of a sin.

Freed from all rival doubts and jealous fears,

By time's rude hand, those relics I adore;

My flames increase, although thy beauty wears;

And in this temp'rate season love thee more,

Than in that scorching heat that went before.

Virgins as I advise forbear

Virgins as I advise forbear,

to follow this bright star;

You might shine in another sphere,

but here eclipsed are.

For her, your whole sex I adore,

and pity more

Those precious hours you spend

thus to no end.

For who so e'er you meet or see,

will all her captives be.

But if upon this queen of love

as homage you wait

If as her guards you were her move

to all unto her state.

Who she by th'uncontrolled power

of her chaste flame

Creates a prince, that hour

may you the same,

And like to hers, may thus your will

have power to save or kill.

If you a wrinkle on the sea have been

If you a wrinkle on the sea have been,

Ambitious, rise till it a wave hath been,

And marked that wave ascending high,

Dash down again, and in an instant die,

Give in to death, beginning to a new

Till wrapt within themselves we loose their view,

So in love's growth, a spark begets a flame,

And that, burnt out, returns to ash again.

These the degrees and ends of lovers' bliss,

From small to great, then nothing is.