LOVE'S LAST MOMENTS. 25 LOVE'S LAST MOMENTS. SINCE there's no help, come let us kiss and part,— Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, -Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might'st him yet recover! Michael Drayton. 26 TO THE MOON. TO THE MOON. WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies! Sir P. Sidney. TO THE NIGHTINGALE. 27 TO THE NIGHTINGALE. O NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh; John Milton. 28 TO HIS LUTE. TO HIS LUTE. My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow Since that dear Voice which did thy sounds approve, Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more, Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear; Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, William Drummond. THE LOVER TO HIS LYRE. 29 THE LOVER TO HIS LYRE. AWAKE, awake, my Lyre! And tell thy silent master's humble tale And I so lowly be, Tell her such different notes make all thy harmony. Hark! how the strings awake; And though the moving hand approach not near, A kind of numerous trembling make. Now all thy charms apply: Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye! Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure Is useless here, since thou art only found And she to wound, but not to cure. Too weak too wilt thou prove, My passion to remove: Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love. Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre! For thou canst never tell my humble tale In sounds that will prevail, Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire. All thy vain mirth lay by, Bid thy strings silent lie: Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die! Abraham Cowley. |