StoryTitle("caps", "To His Mistress") ?>
(After Quarles)
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The sunshine of the Sun's enlivening eye? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Without thy light what light remains in me? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou art my life; my way, my light's in thee; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I live, I move, and by thy beams I see. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou art my life—if thou but turn away ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My life's a thousand deaths. Thou art my way— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Without thee, Love, I travel not but stray. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My light thou art—without thy glorious sight ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My eyes are darken'd with eternal night. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou art my way; I wander if thou fly. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou art my light; if hid, how blind am I! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou art my life; if thou withdraw'st, I die. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My eyes are dark and blind, I cannot see: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To whom or whither should my darkness flee, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But to that light?—and who's that light but thee? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "If I have lost my path, dear lover, say, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Shall I still wander in a doubtful way? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Love, shall a lamb of Israel's sheepfold stray? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My path is lost, my wandering steps do stray; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I cannot go, nor can I safely stay; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And yet thou turn'st thy face away and fly'st me! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And yet I sue for grace and thou deny'st me! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Speak, art thou angry, Love, or only try'st me? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou art the pilgrim's path, the blind man's eye, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The dead man's life. On thee my hopes rely: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "If I but them remove, I surely die. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dissolve thy sunbeams, close thy wings and stay! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "See, see how I am blind, and dead, and stray! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "—O thou that art my life, my light, my way! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then work thy will! If passion bid me flee, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My reason shall obey, my wings shall be ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Stretch'd out no farther than from me to thee!", "") ?>
Poet("John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester", "1647–1680") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>