79. MRS ELIZ: WHEELER, UNDER THE NAME OF THE LOST SHEPHERDESS

Among the myrtles as I walk'd

Love and my sighs thus intertalk'd:

Tell me, said I, in deep distress,

Where I may find my Shepherdess?

--Thou fool, said Love, know'st thou not this?

In every thing that's sweet she is.

In yond' carnation go and seek,

There thou shalt find her lip and cheek;

In that enamell'd pansy by,

There thou shalt have her curious eye;

In bloom of peach and rose's bud,

There waves the streamer of her blood.

--'Tis true, said I; and thereupon

I went to pluck them one by one,

To make of parts an union;

But on a sudden all were gone.

At which I stopp'd; Said Love, these be

The true resemblances of thee;

For as these flowers, thy joys must die;

And in the turning of an eye;

And all thy hopes of her must wither,

Like those short sweets here knit together.

A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick · 第 90 / 269 题