The Welcome to Sack

So soft streams meet, so springs with gladder smilesMeet after long divorcement by the isles;When love, the child of likeness, urgeth onTheir crystal natures to a union:So meet stolen kisses, when the moony nightsCall forth fierce lovers to their wish'd delights;

So kings and queens meet, when desire convincesAll thoughts but such as aim at getting princes,As I meet thee. Soul of my life and fame!Eternal lamp of love! whose radiant flameOut-glares the heaven's Osiris,[H] and thy gleamsOut-shine the splendour of his mid-day beams.Welcome, O welcome, my illustrious spouse;Welcome as are the ends unto my vows;Aye! far more welcome than the happy soilThe sea-scourged merchant, after all his toil,Salutes with tears of joy, when fires betrayThe smoky chimneys of his Ithaca.Where hast thou been so long from my embraces,Poor pitied exile? Tell me, did thy gracesFly discontented hence, and for a timeDid rather choose to bless another clime?Or went'st thou to this end, the more to move me,By thy short absence, to desire and love thee?Why frowns my sweet? Why won't my saint conferFavours on me, her fierce idolater?Why are those looks, those looks the which have beenTime-past so fragrant, sickly now drawn inLike a dull twilight? Tell me, and the faultI'll expiate with sulphur, hair and salt;And, with the crystal humour of the spring,Purge hence the guilt and kill this quarrelling.

Wo't thou not smile or tell me what's amiss?Have I been cold to hug thee, too remiss,Too temp'rate in embracing? Tell me, has desireTo thee-ward died i' th' embers, and no fireLeft in this rak'd-up ash-heap as a markTo testify the glowing of a spark?Have I divorc'd thee only to combineIn hot adult'ry with another wine?True, I confess I left thee, and appeal'Twas done by me more to confirm my zealAnd double my affection on thee, as do thoseWhose love grows more inflam'd by being foes.But to forsake thee ever, could there beA thought of such-like possibility?When thou thyself dar'st say thy isles shall lackGrapes before Herrick leaves canary sack.Thou mak'st me airy, active to be borne,Like Iphiclus, upon the tops of corn.Thou mak'st me nimble, as the winged hours,To dance and caper on the heads of flowers,And ride the sunbeams. Can there be a thingUnder the heavenly Isis[I] that can bringMore love unto my life, or can presentMy genius with a fuller blandishment?Illustrious idol! could th' Egyptians seekHelp from the garlic, onion and the leekAnd pay no vows to thee, who wast their bestGod, and far more transcendent than the rest?

Had Cassius, that weak water-drinker, knownThee in thy vine, or had but tasted oneSmall chalice of thy frantic liquor, he,As the wise Cato, had approv'd of thee.Had not Jove's son,[J] that brave Tirynthian swain,Invited to the Thesbian banquet, ta'enFull goblets of thy gen'rous blood, his spriteNe'er had kept heat for fifty maids that night.Come, come and kiss me; love and lust commendsThee and thy beauties; kiss, we will be friendsToo strong for fate to break us. Look uponMe with that full pride of complexionAs queens meet queens, or come thou unto meAs Cleopatra came to Anthony,When her high carriage did at once presentTo the triumvir love and wonderment.Swell up my nerves with spirit; let my bloodRun through my veins like to a hasty flood.Fill each part full of fire, active to doWhat thy commanding soul shall put it to;And till I turn apostate to thy love,Which here I vow to serve, do not removeThy fires from me, but Apollo's curseBlast these-like actions, or a thing that's worse.When these circumstants shall but live to seeThe time that I prevaricate from thee.Call me the son of beer, and then confineMe to the tap, the toast, the turf; let wine

Ne'er shine upon me; may my numbers allRun to a sudden death and funeral.And last, when thee, dear spouse, I disavow,Ne'er may prophetic Daphne crown my brow.

Convinces, overcomes.Ithaca, the home of the wanderer Ulysses.Iphiclus won the foot-race at the funeral games of Pelias.Circumstants, surroundings.