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Title: To Chloe, Courting Her For His Friend
Author: Richard Lovelace [
More Titles by Lovelace]
I.
Chloe, behold! againe I bowe:
Againe possest, againe I woe;
From my heat hath taken fire
Damas, noble youth, and fries,<36.1>
Gazing with one of mine eyes,
Damas, halfe of me expires:
Chloe, behold! Our fate's the same.
Or make me cinders too, or quench his flame
II.
I'd not be King, unlesse there sate
Lesse lords that shar'd with me in state
Who, by their cheaper coronets, know,
What glories from my diadem flow:
Its use and rate<36.2> values the gem:
Pearles in their shells have no esteem;
And, I being sun within thy sphere,
'Tis my chiefe beauty thinner lights shine there.
III.
The Us'rer heaps unto his store
By seeing others praise it more;
Who not for gaine or want doth covet,
But, 'cause another loves, doth love it:
Thus gluttons cloy'd afresh invite
Their gusts from some new appetite;
And after cloth remov'd, and meate,
Fall too againe by seeing others eate.
Notes:
<1> This is not unfrequently used in old writers in the sense of BURN:--
"But Lucilla, who now began to frie in the flames of love, all the company being departed," &c.--Lyly's EUPHUES, 1579, sig. c v. verso.
"My lady-mistresse cast an amourous eye
Upon my forme, which her affections drew,
Shee was Love's martyr, and in flames did frye."
EGYPT'S FAVORITE. THE HISTORIE OF JOSEPH.
By Sir F. Hubert, 1631, sig. C.
<2> The estimation in which it is held, its marketable worth.
[The end]
Richard Lovelace's poem: To Chloe, Courting Her For His Friend
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