A Lover to His Mistress
Oh make not light of love, my lady dear,
For, from that sweetest source doth ever flow
All that is likest heaven on earth below.
Ill it beseems who worthiest love appear,
To scoff at their own worship;—if to you
All that a serving soul, tender and true,
Can bring of best and holiest offering,
Seems but a slight and unregarded thing—
Then are you, with your grace and loveliness,
A wicked phantom, with an evil spell,
Luring warm human hearts to a cold hell,
Where in a barren, blighted emptiness,
Self-love and vanity together dwell;
Companions curst, cruel, and comfortless.
