Love Still Has Something of the Sea

This is the archive for the Jewelry Poetry Page of the Beadshaper web site. Every month a piece of jewelry on the Beadshaper site is named after a classic poem. To see the Beadshaper site, please click Beadshaper . The following poem is the one for the month of August, 2007.

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Love Still Has Something of the Sea
by Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701)

Love still has something of the sea,
From whence his mother rose;
No time his slaves from Doubt can free,
Nor give their thoughts repose;

They are becalmed in clearest days,
And in rough whether tost;
They wither under cold delays,
Or are in tempests lost.

One while they seem to touch the port,
Then straighten into the main,
Some angry wind in cruel sport
The vessel drives again.

At first Disdain and Pride they fear,
Which if they chance to 'scape,
Rivals and Falsehood soon appear
In a more dreadful shape.

By such degees to Joy they come,
And are so long withstood,
So slowly they receive the sum,
It hardly does them good.

'Tis cruel to prolong a pain,
And to defer a joy,
Believe me, gentle Celemene,
Offends the winged Boy.

An hundred thousand oaths your fears
Perhaps would not remove;
And if I gazed a thousand years
I could no deeper love.