Tixall Poetry/A Present of Bands and Cuffes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
A Present of
Bands and Cuffes,
Your token did not half so straightly bind
Bands to my neck, as feters to my mind;
Nor could those manicles my hand restraine
So strongly as they did my hart inchaine.
Oh, strange and unconseaved tirany,
With gifts to rob one of his libertye!
To bid his conquered neck and shoulders sweat
Under the baner of his owne defeat;
And make your prisoner on his armes to weare
The trophys of the victorye you beare.
Ah, now I find the cause why still you did
So smile to prick the lawne, or cut the thrid:—
You were my fate; the needle was your dart,
The thrid my life, the camberick my hart.
Ah, too, too late I now can call to mind
Why you such choyce of strings prepar'd to bind
Your slave; and lest I scapd before I dide,
You still complained the stocks were made too wide.
Yet twas not hansome, ladys such as you,
Though you might wound and binde, to cufe me too.
Bands to my neck, as feters to my mind;
Nor could those manicles my hand restraine
So strongly as they did my hart inchaine.
Oh, strange and unconseaved tirany,
With gifts to rob one of his libertye!
To bid his conquered neck and shoulders sweat
Under the baner of his owne defeat;
And make your prisoner on his armes to weare
The trophys of the victorye you beare.
Ah, now I find the cause why still you did
So smile to prick the lawne, or cut the thrid:—
You were my fate; the needle was your dart,
The thrid my life, the camberick my hart.
Ah, too, too late I now can call to mind
Why you such choyce of strings prepar'd to bind
Your slave; and lest I scapd before I dide,
You still complained the stocks were made too wide.
Yet twas not hansome, ladys such as you,
Though you might wound and binde, to cufe me too.