She that would raise a noble love, must find
Ways to beget a passion for her mind; *
She must be that which she to be would seem;
For all true love is grounded on esteem;
Plainness and truth gain more a generous heart,
Than all the crooked subtleties of art.

To Lucasta, on going to the Wars.
TELL me not, Sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace +
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you too shall adore;

BUCKINGHAM.

I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.‡

LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds;

Or bends with the remover to remove :

LOVELACE.

* As amber attracts a straw, so does beauty admiration, which only lasts while the warmth continues; but virtue, wisdom, goodness, and real worth, like the loadstone, never lose their power. These are the true graces, which, as Homer feigns, are linked and tied hand in hand, because it is by their influence that human hearts are so firmly united to each other.

BURTON. Anatomy.

+ Love's an heroic passion, which can find
No room in any base, degenerate mind:
It kindles all the soul with honour's fire,
To make the lover worthy his desire.

DRYDEN.

Love is a secondary passion in those who love most, a primary in those who love least. He who is inspired by it in a great degree, is inspired by honour in a greater. LANDOR.

Conversations between Roger Ascham and Lady
Jane Grey.

N

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ;

It is a star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

SHAKSPEARE. Sonnet.

O POORTITH Cauld, and restless love,
Ye wreck my peace between ye,

Yet poortith a' I could forgive
An 'twere na' for my Jeannie.

O why should fate sic pleasure have,
Life's dearest bands untwining?
Or why sae sweet a flower as love
Depend on fortune's shining?

This warld's wealth, when I think on
Its pride, and a' the lave o't-
Fie, fie on silly coward man,

That he should be the slave o't!

Her een sae bonnie blue betray
How she repays my passion ;
But prudence is her o'erword aye,
She talks of rank and fashion.

O wha can prudence think upon,
And sic a lassie by him?
O wha can prudence think upon,
And sae in love as I am!

How blest the humble cotter's fate!

He woos his simple dearie;

The silly bogles, wealth and state,

Can never make them eerie.

O why should fate sic pleasure have, &c., &c.

BURNS.

HE's past; a soul of nobler tone:
My spirit loved and loves him yet,

Like some poor girl whose heart is set
On one whose rank exceeds her own.

He mixing with his proper sphere,
She finds the baseness of her lot,
Half jealous of she knows not what,
And envying all that meet him there.

The little village looks forlorn ;

She sighs amid her narrow days
Moving about the household ways,
In that dark house where she was born.
The foolish neighbours come and go,
And tease her till the day draws by:
At night she weeps, "How vain am I,"
How should he love a thing so low.

TENNYSON. In Memoriam.

FOR ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to Love,
And when we meet a mutual heart
Come in between, and bid us part?

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish and wish the soul

away;

Till youth and genial years are flown
And all the life of life is gone.

But busy, busy still art thou,
To bind the loveless, joyless vow,
The heart from pleasure to delude
To join the gentle to the rude.

L'AMOUR TIMIDE.

IF in that breast so good, so pure,
Compassion ever lov'd to dwell,

Pity the sorrows I endure;

The cause-I must not, dare not tell.

The grief that on my quiet preys—

THOMSON.

That rends my heart-that checks my tongue

I fear will last me all my days,

But feel it will not last me long.

SIR JOHN H. MOORE.

Viola. My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.

Duke.
Vio.

And what's her history?
A blank, my lord. She never told her love,*
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy

She sat like patience on a monument,

Olivia. OH! what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!

A murderous guilt shows not itself more soont
Than love that would seem hid.

Twelfth Night, Act II.

Alas! to seize the moment
When heart inclines to heart,
And press a suit with passion,
Is not a woman's part.

If man comes not to gather
The roses where they stand,
They fade among the foliage:
They cannot seek his hand.

BRYANT.

There is no disguise which can long conceal love when it does, or feign

it when it does not, exist.

ROCHEFOUCAULD.

Indamora. Love is an airy good opinion makes:
Which he who only thinks he has, partakes.
Seen by a strong imagination's beam,

That tricks and dresses up the gaudy dream;
Presented so with rapture 'tis enjoyed:
Raised by high fancy, and by low destroy'd.

DRYDEN. Aurenge-Zebe, Act I.

LOVE various minds does variously inspire;
It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire,*
Like that of incense on the altar laid;
But raging flames tempestious souls invade;
A fire which every windy passion blows,
With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows.

DRYDEN.

FOR never yet was wight so well aware,
But he at first or last was trapt in Womens snare.

Faery Queen, Book V., Canto 6.

O SUBTLE Love, a thousand wiles thou hast,
By humble suit, by service, or by hire,

To win a maiden's heart, a thing soon done;
For Nature fram'd all women to be won.

FAIRFAX. Tasso, Book II.

Bur wayward beauty does not fancy move;
A frown forbids, a smile engenders Love.†

Ibid, Book II.

NE may Love be compeld by maistery;
For, soone as maistery comes, sweete Love anone
Taketh his nimble winges, and soone away is gone.

Faery Queen, Book III., Canto 1.

HER faults he knew not, Love is always blind,
But every charm resolved within his mind.

POPE. January and May.

As in the bosom o' the stream,

The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en;
So trembling pure was tender love,
Within the breast o' bounie Jean.

Love will

Part of the way be met, or sit stone still.

BURNS.

HERRICK.