C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
A Bride
By Sir John Suckling (1609–1642)
T
For such a maid no Whitsun-ale
Could ever yet produce;
No grape that’s kindly ripe, could be
So round, so plump, so soft as she,
Nor half so full of juice.
Would not stay on which they did bring,—
It was too wide a peck;
And to say truth (for out it must),
It looked like the great collar (just)
About our young colt’s neck.
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light:
But oh, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.
No daisy makes comparison;
Who sees them is undone:
For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Catherine pear,
The side that’s next the sun.
Compared to that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly;
But Dick, her eyes so guard her face,
I durst no more upon them gaze
Than on the sun in July.
Thou’dst swear her teeth her words did break,
That they might passage get;
But she so handled still the matter,
They came as good as ours, or better,
And are not spent a whit.