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["Epicone; or, The Silent Woman." 1609.]

SONG.

Still to be neat, still to be dressed,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed :
Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Than all the adulteries of art;

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

["The Forest." 1616.]

TO CELIA.

Come, my Celia, let us prove,
While we may, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever:
He, at length, our good will sever.
Spend not then his gifts in vain:
Suns that set, may rise again;
But if once we lose this light,
'Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys?
Fame and rumour are but toys.
Can not we delude the eyes
Of a few poor household spies ?
Or his easier ears beguile,
So removéd by our wile?

'Tis no sin love's fruit to steal,

But the sweet theft to reveal:

To be taken, to be seen,

These have crimes accounted been.

TO THE SAME.

Kiss me, sweet: the wary lover
Can your favours keep, and cover,
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kiss again! no creature comes;
Kiss, and score up wealthy sums
On my lips, thus hardly sundered,
While you breathe. First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the other
Add a thousand, and so more;
Till you equal with the store,
All the grass that Rumney yields,
Or the sands in Chelsea fields,

Or the drops in silver Thames,

Or the stars that gild his streams,

In the silent summers-nights,

When youths ply their stolen delights;
That the curious may not know

How to tell 'em as they flow,

And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pined.

ΤΟ CELIA.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.

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