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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  394. The Relapse

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Thomas Stanley. 1625–1678

394. The Relapse

O TURN away those cruel eyes, 
  The stars of my undoing! 
Or death, in such a bright disguise, 
  May tempt a second wooing. 
 
Punish their blind and impious pride,         5
  Who dare contemn thy glory; 
It was my fall that deified 
  Thy name, and seal’d thy story. 
 
Yet no new sufferings can prepare 
  A higher praise to crown thee;  10
Though my first death proclaim thee fair, 
  My second will unthrone thee. 
 
Lovers will doubt thou canst entice 
  No other for thy fuel, 
And if thou burn one victim twice,  15
  Both think thee poor and cruel.