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Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  John Lyly (1555?–1606)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Cards and Kisses

John Lyly (1555?–1606)

CUPID and my Campaspe play’d

At cards for kisses—Cupid paid:

He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,

His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;

Loses them too; then down he throws

The coral of his lip, the rose

Growing on ’s cheek (but none knows how);

With these, the crystal of his brow,

And then the dimple of his chin:

All these did my Campaspe win.

At last he set her both his eyes—

She won, and Cupid blind did rise.

O Love! has she done this for thee?

What shall, alas! become of me?