ON A GIRDLE
by Edmund Waller

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 !




Massingham, H. J., ed. A Treasury of Seventeeth Century English Verse.
London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1931.  245-246.






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