Alexander Craig (c.1567-1627)

From Amorous Songs, Sonnets, and Elegies (1606)

To Pandora

Go you, O winds that blow from north to south,

Convey my secret sighs unto my sweet;

Deliver them from mine unto her mouth,

And make my commendations till we meet.

But if perhaps her proud aspiring sprite

Will not accept nor yet receive the same,

The breast and bulwark of her bosom beat,

Knock at her heart, and tell from whence you came;

Importune her, nor cease nor shrink for shame.

Sport with her curls of amber-colored hair,

And when she sighs, immix yourselves with thame,

Give her her own, and thus beguile the fair.

Blow winds, fly sighs, whereas my heart doth haunt,

And secretly commend me to my saunt.

Now, while amid those dainty downs and dales

With shepherd swains I sit, unknown to me,

We sweetly sing and tell pastoral tales,

But my discourse and song's theme is of thee.

For otherways, alas, how can it be?

Let Venus leave her blest abode above

To tempt my love, yet thou, sweet soul, shalt see

That I thy man and thou shalt die my love.

No tract of time nor sad eclipse of place

Nor absence long, which sometime were due cures

To my disease, shall make thy slave to cease

From serving thee till life or breath endures;

And till we meet, my rustic mates and I

Through woods and plains Pandora's praise shall cry.