EDMUND WALLER

THAT which her slender waist confined Shall now my joyful temples bind; No monarch but would give his crown His arms might do what this has done. It was my Heaven’s extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer: My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move. A narrow compass! and yet there Dwelt all that’s good, and all that’s fair! Give me but what this ribband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round!

GO, lovely Rose— Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that’s young, And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired: Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. Then die—that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee; How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

The seas are quiet when the winds give o’er; So calm are we when passions are no more. For then we know how vain it was to boast Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. Clouds of affection from our younger eyes Conceal that emptiness which age descries. The soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d, Lets in new light through chinks that Time hath made: Stronger by weakness, wiser men become As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view That stand upon the threshold of the new.