Elizabethan

If in the compass of this fluted shell
I could contain the waters of the sea
That break and fall and rise and surge and swell
And beat about the world incessantly.
Then could I tell
The depth of my exceeding love for Thee.

And as the may-fly breaks his wings with day.
Nor lives to see the setting of the sun.
Let these words say
How long I shall be constant, fairest one.

—B.M.

•