Out of Catallus

COME and let us live my Dear,

Let us love and never fear,

What the sourest Fathers say:

Brightest Sol that dies today

Lives again as blithe tomorrow,

But if we dark sons of sorrow

Set; o then, how long a Night

Shuts the Eyes of our short light!

Then let amorous kisses dwell

On our lips, begin to tell

A Thousand, and a Hundred, score

An Hundred, and a Thousand more,

Till another Thousand smother

That, and that wipe off another.

Thus at last when we have numb'red

Many a Thousand, many a Hundred;

We'll confound the reckoning quite,

And lose ourselves in wild delight:

While our joys so multiply,

As shall mock the envious eye.

Richard Crashaw

Index to poems in the collection by Richard Crashaw