T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
She Lay All Naked in Her Bed
Anonymous(Wit and Drollery, 1656; Merry Drollery, 1661) |
SHE lay all naked in her bed, | |
And I myself lay by; | |
No Veil but Curtains about her spread, | |
No covering but I: | |
Her head upon her shoulders seeks | 5 |
To hang in careless wise, | |
All full of blushes was her cheeks, | |
And of wishes were her eyes. | |
Her blood still fresh into her face, | |
As on a message came, | 10 |
To say that in another place | |
It meant another game; | |
Her cherry Lip moist, plump, and fair, | |
Millions of Kisses crown, | |
Which ripe and uncropt dangled there, | 15 |
And weigh the branches down. | |
Her Breasts, that swell’d so plump and high, | |
Bred pleasant pain in me, | |
For all the world I do defie | |
The like felicity; | 20 |
Her thighs and belly, soft and fair, | |
To me were only shown: | |
To have seen such meat, and not to have eat, | |
Would have angered any stone. | |
Her knees lay upward gently bent, | 25 |
And all lay hollow under, | |
As if on easy terms they meant | |
To fall unforc’d asunder; | |
Just so the Cyprian Queen did lie, | |
Expecting in her bower; | 30 |
When too long stay, had kept the boy | |
Beyond his promis’d hour. | |
“Dull clown,” quoth she, “why dost delay | |
Such proffered bliss to take? | |
Canst thou find out no other way | 35 |
Similitudes to make?” | |
Mad with delight I thundering | |
Threw my Arms about her, | |
But pox upon ’t ’twas but a dream. | |
And so I lay without her. | 40 |