Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Richard Lovelace (1618–1658)

To Lucasta

LUCASTA, frown, and let me die!

But smile, and, see, I live!

The sad indifference of your eye

Both kills and doth reprieve;

You hide our fate within its screen;

We feel our judgment, e’er we hear;

So in one picture I have seen

An angel here, the devil there!