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 |