A SONG TO AMORET.
If I were dead, and in my place Some fresher youth design'd To warm thee with new fires, and grace Those arms I left behind;
Were he as faithful as the sun, That's wedded to the sphere; His blood as chaste and temp'rate run, As April's mildest tear;
Or were he rich, and with his heaps And spacious share of earth, Could make divine affection cheap, And court his golden birth:
For all these arts I'd not believe, --No, though he should be thine-- The mighty amorist could give So rich a heart as mine.
Fortune and beauty thou might'st find, And greater men than I: But my true resolved mind They never shall come nigh.[51]
For I not for an hour did love, Or for a day desire, But with my soul had from above This endless, holy fire.
[51]
MS. But with my true steadfast minde None can pretend to vie.