Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1845.

Stanzas

XIII. Anonymous

LOVE’S a fire ever burning,

Mounting high, though often turning;

Quench it, y^e more is flaming;

None can stifle it by taming.

Lust’s a fire, still consuming,

Lighting never, ever fuming;

Quench it, it is straight aswaging;

Give it vent, it’s ever raging.

Love’s a spirit ever acting,

Nought for love, but love exacting;

Boundlesse in its search and notion,

Restlesse in its course and motion.

Lust’s a spirit ever acting

For vile ends, base work exacting,

Lawes impossible affecting;

Nought but blind obedience expecting.

Love’s a starre grosse hearts refining,

Clouded sometimes, and then shining;

And this fortune telling ever,

He who loveth ceaseth never.

Lust’s a wandring starre ne’re shining

For our good, but still designing

With her false lights to deceive us,

And of truth and peace bereave us.

Love’s a river ever flowing,

Fruit and plenty still bestowing;

Wafting us into an ocean

Where we drowne in love’s devotion.

Lust’s a river overflowing

All her banks, to our undoing,

And a sea that’s ever raging—

Neither heat nor thirst aswaging.

Love’s a garden where sweet flowers

Yield their sent and shady bowers,

Ready are to fill with pleasure

Those who to love are at leisure.

Lust’s a garden void of flowers,

Where wild weeds make bainfull bowers;

Fitted to destroy at leisure

Those whose deity is pleasure.

Love’s a fort, whose highest tower

Keeps a strict watch over hower;

Hath its parts so well combining,

As it fears not force nor mining.

Lust’s a fortresse, ever paying

Those who trust it with betraying;

And to yield so quickly signing,

As it feares not force nor mining.

Love’s a temple, where is stor’d

But one saint to be ador’d;

And whose altars feed their fire

With heart single and intire.

Lust’s a temple, where the devill

Under every shape that’s evil

Is ador’d; and whose fires

Black and scorch with foul desires.

Love is musick, where the meeter

Makes the harmony the sweeter;

If y^t tell a heavenly story,

Then y^e musick turnes to glory.

Lust is musick, where the poet

Contributes so much unto it,

As at y^e best what was but madnesse

Ends in anguish and in sadnesse.

Love’s a master, ever pleasing,

Bonds untying, burthens easing;

Chide he may, but never rages;

One whose very work is wages.

Lust is twenty thousand masters,

Breaking heads and giving plaisters;

Fierce and foolish in commanding,

To his bargaine never standing.