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The Hesperides & Noble Numbers/Hesperides/His Misery in a Mistress

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Robert Herrick (1591-1674)2653044The Hesperides & Noble NumbersHesperides
His Misery in a Mistress
1898Alfred Pollard

162. HIS MISERY IN A MISTRESS.

Water, water I espy;
Come and cool ye, all who fry
In your loves; but none as I.

Though a thousand showers be
Still a-falling, yet I see
Not one drop to light on me.

Happy you who can have seas
For to quench ye, or some ease
From your kinder mistresses.

I have one, and she alone,
Of a thousand thousand known,
Dead to all compassion.

Such an one as will repeat
Both the cause and make the heat
More by provocation great.

Gentle friends, though I despair
Of my cure, do you beware
Of those girls which cruel are.