Thomas Campian.

1567?-1619

178   Cherry-Ripe

THERE is a garden in her face
     Where roses and white lilies blow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
   Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:
     There cherries grow which none may buy
     Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose
     Of orient pearls a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
   They look like rose-buds fill’d with snow;
     Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy
     Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;
     Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill
   All that attempt with eye or hand
     Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
     Till ‘Cherry- ripe’ themselves do cry.

179   Laura

   ROSE-CHEEK’D Laura, come;
Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty’s
Silent music, either other
        Sweetly gracing.

   Lovely forms do flow
From concent divinely framàed:
Heaven is music, and thy beauty’s
        Birth is heavenly.

   These dull notes we sing
Discords need for helps to grace them;
Only beauty purely loving
        Knows no discord;

   But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renew’d by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in them—
        selves eternal.

180   Devotion

(i)

FOLLOW thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!
   Though thou be black as night,
   And she made all of light,
Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!

Follow her, whose light thy light depriveth!
   Though here thou liv’st disgraced,
   And she in heaven is placed,
Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth!

Follow those pure beams, whose beauty burneth!
   That so have scorchàed thee
   As thou still black must be,
Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth!

Follow her, while yet her glory shineth!
   There comes a luckless night
   That will dim all her light;
And this the black unhappy shade divineth.

Follow still, since so thy fates ordainàed!
   The sun must have his shade,
   Till both at once do fade,—
The sun still proud, the shadow still disdainàed.

181   (ii)

FOLLOW your saint, follow with accents sweet!
Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet!
There, wrapt in cloud of sorrow, pity move,
And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:
But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain,
Then burst with sighing in her sight, and ne’er return again!