Stay me with Flowers, and comfort me with Apples, for I am sicke with love.
1
O Tyrant love! how does thy sev'raigne pow'r
Subject poore soules to thy imperious thrall!
They say, thy Cup's compos'd of sweet and sowre;
They say, thy diet's Honey, mixt with Gall;
How comes it then to passe, these lips of our
Still trade in bitter; taste no sweet at all?
O tyrant love! Shall our perpetuall toyle
Nev'r find a Sabbath, to refresh, a while,
Our drooping soules? Art thou all frowns, and nev'r a smile?
2
You blessed Maids of Honour, that frequent
The royall Courts of our renown'd JEHOVE,
With Flow'rs restore my spirits faint, and spent;
O fetch me Apples from Loves fruitfull Grove,
To coole my palat, and renew my sent,
For I am sick, for I am sick of Love:
These, will revive my dry, my wasted pow'rs,
And they, will sweeten my unsav'ry houres;
Resfresh me then with Fruit, and comfort me with Flow'rs.
3
O bring me Apples to asswage that fire,
Which, Aetna-like, inflames my flaming brest;
Nor is it ev'ry Apple I desire,
Nor that which pleases ev'ry Palat best:
'Tis not the lasting Deuzan I require,
Nor yet the red-cheek'd Queening I request;
Nor that which, first, beshrewd the name of wife,
Nor that whose beauty caus'd the gold strife:
No, no, bring me an Apple from the Tree of life.
4
Virgins, tuck up your silken laps, and fill ye
With the faire wealth of Floras Magazine;
The purple Vy'let, and the pale-fac'd Lilly;
The Pauncy and the Organ Columbine;
The flowring Thyme, the gilt-boule Daffadilly;
The lowly Pinck, the lofty Eglentine:
The blushing Rose, the Queene of Flow'rs, and best
Of Floras beauty; but, above the rest,
Let Jesses sov'raigne Flow'r perfume my qualming brest.
5
Haste, Virgins, haste; for I lie weake and faint,
Beneath the pangs of love; why stand ye mute;
As if your silence neither car'd to grant,
Nor yet your languagre to deny my suit?
No key can lock the doore of my complaint,
Untill I smell this Flow'r, or taste that Fruit;
Go, Virgins, seek this Tree, and search that Bow'r;
O, how my soule shall blesse that happy houre,
That brings to me such fruit, that brings me such a Flow'r!
GISTEN. in Cap. 2 Cant. Expos. 3.
O happy happy sicknesse! where the infirmity is not to death, but to life,
that God may be glorified by it: O happy fever, that proceeds not from a
consuming, but a calcining fire! O happy distemper, wherein the soule relishes
no earthly things, but onely savours divine nourishment!
S. BERN. Serm. 51 in Cant.
By flowers understand faith; by fruit, good works: As the flower or blossome is
before the fruit, so is faith before good works: So neither is the fruit without
the flower, nor good works without faith.
