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Title: A Paradox
Author: Richard Lovelace [
More Titles by Lovelace]
I.
Tis true the beauteous Starre <1>
To which I first did bow
Burnt quicker, brighter far,
Than that which leads me now;
Which shines with more delight,
For gazing on that light
So long, neere lost my sight.
II.
Through foul we follow faire,
For had the world one face,
And earth been bright as ayre,
We had knowne neither place.
Indians smell not their neast;
A Swisse or Finne tastes best
The spices of the East. <2>
III.
So from the glorious Sunne
Who to his height hath got,
With what delight we runne
To some black cave or grot!
And, heav'nly Sydney you
Twice read, had rather view
Some odde romance so new.
IV.
The god, that constant keepes
Unto his deities,
Is poore in joyes, and sleepes
Imprison'd in the skies.
This knew the wisest, who
From Juno stole, below
To love a bear or cow.
FOOTNOTES:
<1> i.e. LUCASTA.
<2> The East was celebrated by all our early poets as the land of spices and rich gums:--
"For now the fragrant East,
The spicery o' th' world,
Hath hurl'd
A rosie tincture o'er the Phoenix nest."
OTIA SACRA, by Mildmay, Earl of Westmoreland, 1648, p. 37.
[The end]
Richard Lovelace's poem: Paradox
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