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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XIII. Love guides the roses of thy lips

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Phillis

Sonnet XIII. Love guides the roses of thy lips

Thomas Lodge (1558–1625)

LOVE guides the roses of thy lips,

And flies about them like a bee;

If I approach he forward skips,

And if I kiss he stingeth me.

Love in thine eyes doth build his bower,

And sleeps within their pretty shine;

And if I look the boy will lower,

And from their orbs shoot shafts divine.

Love works thy heart within his fire,

And in my tears doth firm the same;

And if I tempt it will retire,

And of my plaints doth make a game.

Love, let me cull her choicest flowers,

And pity me, and calm her eye,

Make soft her heart, dissolve her lowers,

Then will I praise thy deity.

But if thou do not love, I ’ll truly serve her.

In spite of thee, and by firm faith deserve her.