T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Like to the Wealthy Island Thou Shalt Lie
Anonymous(From The New Academy of Compliments, 1671) |
LIKE to the wealthy island thou shalt lie, | |
| And like the sea about it, I; | |
| Thou like fair Albion to the sailors’ sight, | |
| Spreading her beauteous bosom all in white; | |
| Like the kind Ocean I will be, | 5 |
| With loving arms for ever clasping thee. | |
| But I’ll embrace thee gentlier far than so, | |
| As their fresh banks soft rivers do; | |
| Nor shall the proudest planet boast a power | |
| Of making my full love to ebb an hour: | 10 |
| It never dry or low can prove, | |
| Whilst my unwasted fountain feeds my love. | |
| Such heat and vigour shall our kisses bear, | |
| As if like doves we engender’d there: | |
| No bound nor rule my pleasures shall endure, | 15 |
| In love there’s none too much an epicure. | |
| Nought shall my hands or lips control; | |
| I’ll kiss thee through, I’ll kiss thy very soul. | |
| Yet nothing but the night our sport shall know, | |
| Night that’s both blind and silent too. | 20 |
| Alpheus found not a more secret trace, | |
| His loved Sicanian fountain to embrace, | |
| Creeping so far beneath the sea, | |
| Than I will do t’enjoy and feast on thee. | |
| Men out of wisdom, women out of pride, | 25 |
| The pleasant thefts of love do hide: | |
| That may secure thee, but thou hast yet from me | |
| A more infallible security; | |
| For there’s no danger I should tell | |
| The joys which are to me unspeakable. | 30 |