T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
To His Mistress Desirous to Go to Bed
Anonymous(From John Cotgrave’s Wit’s Interpreter, 1655) |
SLEEPY, my dear? yes, yes, I see | |
| Morpheus is fallen in love with thee; | |
| Morpheus, my worst of rivals, tries | |
| To draw the curtains of thine eyes, | |
| And fans them with his wing asleep; | 5 |
| Makes drowsy love to play bo-peep. | |
| How prettily his feathers blow | |
| Those fleshy shuttings to and fro! | |
| O how he makes me tantalise | |
| With those fair apples of thine eyes! | 10 |
| Equivocates and cheats me still, | |
| Opening and shutting at his will, | |
| Now both, now one! the doting god | |
| Plays with thine eyes at even or odd. | |
| My stammering tongue doubts which it might | 15 |
| Bid thee, good-morrow or good-night. | |
| So thy eyes twinkle brighter far | |
| Than the bright trembling evening star; | |
| So a wax taper, burnt within | |
| The socket, plays at out and in. | 20 |
| Thus doth Morpheus court thine eye, | |
| Meaning there all night to lie: | |
| Cupid and he play Whoop, All-Hid! | |
| The eye, their bed and coverlid. | |
| Fairest, let me thy night-clothes air; | 25 |
| Come, I’ll unlace thy stomacher. | |
| Make me thy maiden chamber-man, | |
| Or let me be thy warming-pan. | |
| O that I might but lay my head | |
| At thy bed’s feet i’th trundle-bed. | 30 |