Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Sir Charles Sedley (1639–1701)

Song (from The Mulberry Garden): ‘Ah! Chloris’

AH! Chloris, that I now could sit

As unconcerned as when

Your infant beauty could beget

No pleasure, nor no pain!

When I the dawn used to admire

And praised the coming day,

I little thought the growing fire

Must take my rest away.

Your charms in harmless childhood lay,

Like metals in the mine,

Age from no face took more away

Than youth concealed in thine.

But as your charms insensibly

To their perfection prest,

Fond love as unperceived did fly,

And in my bosom rest.

My passion with your beauty grew,

And Cupid at my heart,

Still as his mother favoured you,

Threw a new flaming dart.

Each gloried in their wanton part;

To make a lover, he

Employed the utmost of his art,

To make a beauty she.

Though now I slowly bend to love,

Uncertain of my fate,

If your fair self my chains approve

I shall my freedom hate.

Lovers, like dying men, may well

At first disordered be,

Since none alive can truly tell

What fortune they must see.