Lucasta; The Poems of Richard Lovelace/A Paradox

For works with similar titles, see Paradox.
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A PARADOX.

I.

TIS true the beauteous Starre[1]
 To which I first did bow
 Burnt quicker, brighter far,
 Than that which leads me now;
  Which shines with more delight,
  For gazing on that light
  So long, neere lost my sight.

II.

Through foul we follow faire,
 For had the world one face,
And earth been bright as ayre,
 We had knowne neither place.
  Indians smell not their neast;
  A Swisse or Finne tastes best
  The spiecs of the East.[2]

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III.

So from the glorious Sunne
 Who to his height hath got,
With what delight we runne
 To some black cave or grot!
  And, heav’nly Sydney you
  Twice read, had rather view
  Some odde romance so new.

IV.

The god, that constant keepes
 Unto his deities,
Is poore in joyes, and sleepes
 Imprison’d in the skies.
  This knew the wisest, who
  From Juno stole, below
  To love a bear or cow.



  1. ↑ i. e. Lucasta.
  2. ↑ The East was celebrated by all our early poets as the land of spices and rich gums:—
    "For now the fragrant East,
    The spicery o' th' world,
         Hath hurl’d
    A rosie tincture o’er the Phœnix neat.”
    Otia Sacra, by Mildmay, Earl of Westmorsland, 1648, p. 37.
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