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Home  »  The Book of Restoration Verse  »  Charles Cotton (1630–1687)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

Laura Sleeping

Charles Cotton (1630–1687)

WINDS, whisper gently whilst she sleeps,

And fan her with your cooling wings;

While she her drops of beauty weeps,

From pure, and yet unrivalled springs.

Glide over Beauty’s field, her face,

To kiss her lip and cheek be bold;

But with a calm and stealing pace;

Neither too rude, nor yet too cold.

Play in her beams, and crisp her hair

With such a gale as wings soft Love,

And with so sweet, so rich an air,

As breathes from the Arabian grove.

A breath as hushed as lover’s sigh;

Or that unfolds the morning’s door:

Sweet as the winds that gently fly

To sweep the Spring’s enamelled floor.

Murmur soft music to her dreams,

That pure and unpolluted run

Like to the new-born crystal streams,

Under the bright enamoured sun.

But when she walking shall display,

Her light, retire within your bar;

Her breath is life, her eyes are day,

And all mankind her creatures are.