| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910. | | | | To a Very Young Lady | | By Sir Charles Sedley (1639–1701) |
| | | AH, Chloris! that I now could sit | |
| As unconcerned, as when | |
| Your infant beauty could beget | |
| No pleasure nor no pain. | |
| |
| When I the dawn used to admire, | 5 |
| And praised the coming day, | |
| I little thought the growing fire | |
| Must take my rest away. | |
| |
| Your charms in harmless childhood lay, | |
| Like metals in the mine; | 10 |
| Age from no face took more away, | |
| Than youth concealed in thine. | |
| |
| But as your charms insensibly | |
| To their perfection prest, | |
| Fond love as unperceived did fly, | 15 |
| And in my bosom rest. | |
| |
| My passion with your beauty grew, | |
| And Cupid at my heart, | |
| Still, as his mother favoured you, | |
| Threw a new flaming dart. | 20 |
| |
| Each gloried in their wanton part: | |
| To make a lover, he | |
| Employed the utmost of his art— | |
| To make a beauty, she. | |
| |
| Though now I slowly bend to love, | 25 |
| Uncertain of my fate, | |
| If your fair self my chains approve, | |
| I shall my freedom hate. | |
| |
| Lovers, like dying men, may well | |
| At first disordered be; | 30 |
| Since none alive can truly tell | |
| What fortune they must see. | | | | |
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