English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Sir Charles Sedley
260. Chloris
A
As unconcern’d as when
Your infant beauty could beget
No happiness or pain!
When I the dawn used to admire,
And praised the coming day,
I little thought the rising fire
Would take my rest away.
Like metals in a mine;
Age from no face takes more away
Than youth conceal’d in thine.
But as your charms insensibly
To their perfection prest,
So love as unperceived did fly,
And centre’d in my breast.
While Cupid at my heart
Still as his mother favour’d you
Threw a new flaming dart:
Each gloried in their wanton part;
To make a lover, he
Employ’d the utmost of his art—
To make a beauty, she.