Page:Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics.djvu/89

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Second
73
A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks Like Hebe’s in her ruddiest hours, A breath that softer music speaks Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,
These are but gauds: nay what are lips? Coral beneath the ocean-stream, Whose brink when your adventurer slips Full oft he perisheth on them.
And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft That wave hot youth to fields of blood? Did Helen’s breast, though ne’er so soft. Do Greece or Ilium any good?
Eyes can with baleful ardour burn; Poison can breath, that erst perfumed; There’s many a white hand holds an urn With lovers’ hearts to dust consumed.
For crystal brows there’s nought within; They are but empty cells for pride; He who the Syren’s hair would win Is mostly strangled in the tide.
Give me, instead of Beauty’s bust, A tender heart, a loyal mind Which with temptation I would trust, Yet never link’d with error find, —
One in whose gentle bosom I Could pour my secret heart of woes, Like the care-burthen’d honey-fly That hides his murmurs in the rose,—
My earthly Comforter! whose love So indefeasible might be That, when my spirit wonn’d above, Hers could not stay, for sympathy. Anon.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.