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

On a Girdle

That which her slender waist confined

Shall now my joyful temples bind;

No monarch but would give his crown

His arms might do what this has done.


It was my Heaven's extremest sphere,

The pale which held that lovely deer:

My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,

Did all within this circle move.


A narrow compass! and yet there

Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair!

Give me but what this ribband bound,

Take all the rest the sun goes round!

— Edmund Waller
1606-1687   


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