Gateway to the Classics: Oxford Book of English Verse, Part 2 by Arthur Quiller-Couch
 
Oxford Book of English Verse, Part 2 by  Arthur Quiller-Couch

Cherry-Ripe

There is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies blow;

A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:

There cherries grow which none may buy

Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry.


Those cherries fairly do enclose

Of orient pearl a double row,

Which when her lovely laughter shows,

They look like rose-buds fill'd with snow;

Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy

Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry.


Her eyes like angels watch them still;

Her brows like bended bows do stand,

Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill

All that attempt with eye or hand

Those sacred cherries to come nigh,

Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry.

— Thomas Campion
1567?-1619   


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