| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | “Down in a Garden Sat My Dearest Love” | | Anonymous |
| | (From John Cotgrave’s Wit’s Interpreter, 1655) |
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DOWN in a garden sat my dearest love, | |
| Her skin more soft than down of swan, | |
| More tender-hearted than the turtle dove | |
| And far more kind than bleeding pelican. | |
| I courted her; she rose and blushing said. | 5 |
| “Why was I born to live and die a maid?” | |
| With that I plucked a pretty marigold, | |
| Whose dewy leaves shut up when day is done: | |
| “Sweeting,” I said, “arise, look and behold, | |
| A pretty riddle I’ll to thee unfold: | 10 |
| These leaves shut in as close as cloistered nun, | |
| Yet will they open when they see the sun.” | |
| “What mean you by this riddle, sir?” she said; | |
| “I pray expound it.” Then I thus begun: | |
| “Are not men made for maids and maids for men?” | 15 |
| With that she changed her colour and grew wan. | |
| “Since that this riddle you so well unfold, | |
| Be you the sun, I’ll be the marigold.” | | | |
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