The poetical works of William Strode ... Now first collected from manuscript and printed sources: to which is added: The floating island a tragi-comedy: Now first reprinted from the original edition of 1655: Edited by Bertram Dobell with a memoir of the author |
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UPON A GENTLEWOMAN'S ENTERTAINMENT OF HIM |
 | The poetical works of William Strode |  |
UPON A GENTLEWOMAN'S ENTERTAINMENT OF HIM
Whether, sweet Mistress, I should mostCommend your music or your cost:
Your well-spread table, or the choise
Banquet of your hand and voyce,
There's none will doubt: for can there be
'Twixt earth and heaven analogy?
Or shall a trencher or dish stand
In competition with your hand?
Your hand that turns men all to ear,
Your hand whose every joints a sphere:
For certainly he that shall see
The swiftnesse of your harmony,
Will streightwayes in amazement prove
The spheares to you but slowly move;
And in that thought confess that thus
The Heavens are come down to us,
As he may well, when he shall hear
Such airs as may be sung even there:
Your sacred Anthems, strains that may
Grace the eternal Quire to play:
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By Angels only to be heard.
Then happy I that was so blest
To be yours and your music's guest,
For which I'd change all other cheer,
Thinking the best, though given, too dear.
For yours are delicates that fill,
And filling leave us empty still:
Sweetmeats that surfeit to delight,
Whose fullness is mere appetite.
Then farewell all our heavenly fare,
Those singing dainties of the air,
For you to me do seem as good
As all the consorts of the wood;
And might I but enjoy by choice,
My Quire should be your only voice.
| The poetical works of William Strode | |