Ben Jonson
 
 
T  H  E     F  O  R  E  S  T . 
 

VI. — TO THE SAME. 

[TO CELIA.]


Kiss me, sweet : the wary lover
Can your favors keep, and cover,
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kiss again : no creature comes.
Kiss, and score up wealthy sums
On my lips, thus hardly sundred,
While you breathe.   First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the other               10
Add a thousand, and so more :
Till you equal with the store,
All the grass that Rumney yields,
Or the sands in Chelsea fields,
Or the drops in silver Thames,
Or the stars that gild his streams,
In the silent Summer-nights,
When youths ply their stolen delights ;
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'em as they flow,               20
And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pined.




 
Source:
Jonson, Ben.  The Works of Ben Jonson.
Boston: Phillips, Sampson, and Co., 1853. 803.
Backto Works of Ben Jonson

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