To Chloe, Courting Her For His Friend

Richard Lovelace

Chloë, behold! againe I bowe:
Againe possest, againe I woe;
  From my heat hath taken fire
  Damas, noble youth, and fries,
  Gazing with one of mine eyes,
  Damas, halfe of me expires:
Chloë, behold!  Our fate’s the same.
Or make me cinders too, or quench his flame

I’d not be King, unlesse there sate
Lesse lords that shar’d with me in state
  Who, by their cheaper coronets, know,
  What glories from my diadem flow:
  Its use and rate values the gem:
  Pearles in their shells have no esteem;
And, I being sun within thy sphere,
’Tis my chiefe beauty thinner lights shine there.

The Us’rer heaps unto his store
By seeing others praise it more;
  Who not for gaine or want doth covet,
  But, ‘cause another loves, doth love it:
  Thus gluttons cloy’d afresh invite
  Their gusts from some new appetite;
And after cloth remov’d, and meate,
Fall too againe by seeing others eate.

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