Thomas Stanley: His Original Lyrics, Complete, In Their Collated Readings of 1647, 1651, 1657.: With an Introduction, Textual Notes, a List of Editions, an Appendix of Translations, and a Portrait.Stanley, Thomas
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Thomas Stanley: His Original Lyrics, Complete, In Their Collated Readings of 1647, 1651, 1657.: With an Introduction, Textual Notes, a List of Editions, an Appendix of Translations, and a Portrait.
Stanley, Thomas
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700; Stanley, Thomas, 1625-1678
I love thee not because alone
Thou canst all beauty call thine own,
Nor doth my passion fuel seek 15
In thy bright eye or softer cheek.
Then, Fairest! if thou wouldst know why:
I love thee 'cause thou canst deny.
THE RELAPSE.[59:1]
O turn away those cruel eyes,
The stars of my undoing!
Or death, in such a bright disguise,
May tempt a second wooing.
Punish their blindly impious[59:2] pride, 5
Who dare contemn thy glory!
It was my fall[59:3] that deified
Thy name, and seal'd thy story.
Yet no new sufferings can prepare
A higher praise to crown thee; 10
Though my first death proclaim thee fair,
My second will unthrone thee.
Lovers will doubt thou canst entice
No other for thy fuel,
And if thou burn one victim twice, 15
Both think thee poor and cruel!
APPENDIX
A SHEAF OF TRANSLATIONS.
THE REVENGE.
[Ronsard.]
Fair rebel to thyself and Time,
Who laugh'st at all my tears,
When thou hast lost thy youthful prime,
And Age his trophy rears,
Weighing thy inconsiderate pride, 5
Thou shalt in vain accuse it:
'Why beauty am I now denied,
Or knew not then to use it?'
Then shall I wish, ungentle Fair,
Thou in like flames may'st burn! 10
Venus, if just, will hear my prayer,
And I shall laugh my turn.
CLAIM TO LOVE.
[Guarini.]
Alas! alas! thou turn'st in vain
Thy beauteous face away,
Which, like young sorcerers, rais'd a pain
Above its power to lay.
Love moves not as thou turn'st thy[60:1] look, 5
But here doth firmly rest:
He long ago thine[60:2] eyes forsook
To revel in my breast.
Thy power on him why hop'st thou more
Than his on me should be? 10
The claim thou lay'st to him is poor
To that he owns from me.
His substance in my heart excels,
His shadow, in thy sight:
Fire where it burns more truly dwells 15
Than where it scatters light.
THE SICK LOVER.
[Guarini.]
My sickly breath
Wastes in a double flame,
Whilst Love and Death
To my poor life lay claim;
The fever in whose heat I melt 5
By her that causeth it[61:1] not felt.
Thou who alone
Canst, yet wilt grant no ease,
Why slight'st thou one,
To feed a new disease? 10
Unequal Fair! the heart is thine:
Ah, why then should the pain be mine?
TIME RECOVER'D.
[Casone.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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