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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


CAELICA: 15 by FULKE GREVILLE

Poet Analysis

First Line: WHEN GENTLE BEAUTY'S OVER-WANTON KINDNESS
Last Line: ILL QUARTERED COATS, WHICH YET ALL LOVERS BEAR.

When gentle beauty's over-wanton kindness
Had given love the liberty of playing,
Change brought his eyesight by and by to blindness,
Still hatching in excess her own decaying;

Then cut I self-love's wings to lend him feathers,
Gave him mine eyes to see, in Myra's glory,
Honor and beauty reconciled togethers
Of love, the birth, the fatal tomb and story.

Ah wag, no sooner he that sphere had gotten,
But out of Myra's eyes my eyes he woundeth;
And, but his boy's play having all forgotten,
His heat in her chaste coldness so confoundeth,
As he that burns must freeze, who trusts must fear,
Ill quartered coats, which yet all lovers bear.



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