To his Pandora, from England

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.