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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Leandro’s Song

C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Leandro’s Song

By John Fletcher (1579–1625)

DEAREST, do not you delay me,

Since thou know’st I must be gone;

Wind and tide, ’tis thought, doth stay me,

But ’tis wind that must be blown

From that breath, whose native smell

Indian odors far excel.

Oh then speak, thou fairest fair!

Kill not him that vows to serve thee;

But perfume this neighboring air,

Else dull silence, sure, will starve me:

’Tis a word that’s quickly spoken,

Which being restrained, a heart is broken.