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I Saw your
Face

Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye;

If now I be disdained I wish my heart had never known ye.

What? I that loved and you that liked shall we begin to wrangle?

No, no, no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle.

If I admire or praise you too much, that fault you may forgive me,

Or if my hands had strayed but a touch, then justly might you leave me.

I asked you leave, you bade me love; is 't now a time to chide me?

No, no, no, I'll love you still what fortune e'er betide me.

The sun whose beams most glorious are rejecteth no beholder,

And your sweet beauty past compare made my poor eyes the bolder:

SINCE FIRST I SAW YOUR FACE

Where beauty moves, and wit delights and signs of kindness bind me, There, O there! where'er I go I'll leave my heart behind me.

(B 325)

17

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Chloris think, because

Let me not Chloris think, because
She hath envassel'd me,
That her beauty can give laws
To others that are free.

I was made to be the prey
And booty of her eyes:
In my bosom, she may say,
Her greatest kingdom lies.

Though others may her brow adore,

Yet more must I that therein see far more Than any other's eyes have power to see; She is to me

More than to any others she can be.

I can discern more secret notes

That in the margin of her cheeks Love quotes

Than any else besides have art to read; No looks proceed

From those fair eyes but to me wonder breed.

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LET ME NOT CHLORIS THINK

O then why

Should she fly

From him to whom her sight

Doth add so much above her might?

Why should not she

Still joy to reign in me?

She than whom no Fairer is?

'Art thou that she than whom no fairer

is?

Art thou that she desire so strives to kiss?"

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Say I am: how then?

Maids may not kiss

Such wanton-humoured men."

"Art thou that she the world commends for wit?

Art thou so wise and makest no use of it?"

Say I am: how then?

My wit doth teach me shun
Such foolish, foolish men."

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