Away with these self-loving lads Whom Cupid’s arrow never glads! Away poor souls that sigh and weep, In love of those that lie asleep! For Cupid is a meadow god, And forceth none to kiss the rod. Sweet Cupid’s shafts, like destiny, Do causeless good or ill decree; Desert is borne out of his bow, Reward upon his wing doth go! What fools are they that have not known That Love likes no laws but his own. My songs they be of Cynthia’s praise, I wear her rings on holy-days, In every tree I write her name, And every day I read the same. Where Honour Cupid’s rival is, There miracles are seen of his. If Cynthia crave her ring of me, I blot her name out of the tree; If doubt do darken things held dear, Then well-fare nothing, once a year; For many run, but one must win, Fools only hedge the cuckoo in. The worth that worthiness should move, Is Love, that is the bow of Love; And love as well the foster can, As can the mighty noble-man:— Sweet saint, ’tis true, you worthy be, Yet, without love, nought worth to me. FULKE GREVILLE. A KISS You ask me what’s a kiss? ’Tis Cupid’s keenest arrow! A thing to take a “miss”— (You ask me what’s a kiss?) The brink of an abyss! A lover’s pathway, narrow. You ask me what’s a _kiss_? ’Tis Cupid’s _keenest_ arrow! CHARLES HENRY LÜDERS. THE DILEMMA Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen; By every name I cut on bark Before my morning star grew dark; By Hymen’s torch, by Cupid’s dart, By all that thrills the beating heart; The bright black eye, the melting blue— I cannot choose between the two. I had a vision in my dreams;— I saw a row of twenty beams; From every beam a rope was hung, In every rope a lover swung; I asked the hue of every eye That bade each luckless lover die; Ten shadowy lips said heavenly blue, And ten accused the darker hue. I asked a matron which she deemed With fairest light of beauty beamed; She answered, some thought both were fair— Give her blue eyes and golden hair. I might have liked her judgment well, But, as she spoke, she rung the bell, And all her girls, nor small nor few, Came marching in—their eyes were blue. I asked a maiden; back she flung The locks that round her forehead hung, And turned her eye, a glorious one, Bright as a diamond in the sun, On me, until beneath its rays I felt as if my hair would blaze; She liked all eyes but eyes of green; She looked at me, what could she mean?