C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Sir Charles Sedley (1639–1701)

LOVE still hath something of the sea

From whence his mother rose;

No time his slaves from love can free,

Nor give their thoughts repose.

They are becalmed in clearest days,

And in rough weather tossed;

They wither under cold delays,

Or are in tempests lost.

One while they seem to touch the port;

Then straight into the main

Some angry wind, in cruel sport,

The vessel drives again.

At first disdain and pride they fear,

Which if they chance to ’scape,

Rivals and falsehood soon appear

In a more dreadful shape.

By such degrees to joy they come,

And are so long withstood;

So slowly they receive the sum,

It hardly does them good.

’Tis cruel to prolong a pain;

And to defer a bliss,

Believe me, gentle Hermione,

No less inhuman is.

A hundred thousand foes your fears

Perhaps would not remove;

And if I gazed a thousand years,

I could no deeper love.

’Tis fitter much for you to guess

Than for me to explain;

But grant, oh! grant that happiness

Which only does remain.