Heark, how she laughs aloud,
Although the world put on its shrowd:
Wept at by the fantastic crowd,
Who cry: one drop, let fall
From her, might save the universal ball.
She laughs again
At our ridiculous pain;
And at our merry misery
She laughs, until she cry.
Sages, forbear
That ill-contrived tear,
Although your fear
Doth barricado hope from your soft ear.
That which still makes her mirth to flow,
Is our sinister-handed woe,
Which downwards on its head doth go,
And, ere that it is sown, doth grow.
This makes her spleen contract,
And her just pleasure feast:
For the unjustest act
Is still the pleasant'st jest.
More verses by Richard Lovelace
- Lucasta Paying Her Obsequies To The Chast Memory Of My Dearest Cosin Mrs. Bowes Barne[s]
- To Ellinda, That Lately I Have Not Written
- The Epilogue
- The Toad And Spyder. A Duell
- Gratiana Dancing