Poem by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester

To His Shaddow

Come, my Shaddow, constant, true,
        Stay and doe not fly mee:
When I court thee, or would sue,
        Thou willt not denie mee. 

Faemales Loves I find unkind,
        And devoyde of Pittie; 
Therefore I have chang’d my mind,
        And to thee frame this dittie. 

Child of my Bodie, and that Flame
        From whence our Light we borrow; 
Thou continuest still the same
        In my Joy, or Sorrow. 

Though thou lov’st the Sunshine best
        Or enllghten’d places, 
Ye l thou doest not flye, but rest,
        Midst my black disgraces. 

Thou would’st have all Happy Dayes
        When thou art approching:
No Cloud, nor Night do dimme bright rayes
        By their sad encroching. 

Let but glimmering Lights appear
        To banish Night’s obscuring; 
Thou wilt shew thou harbourd’st nere
        By my side enduring. 

And when thou art forc’ away
        By the sun’s declining, 
Thy Length is doubled, to repay,
        Thy absence, whilst hee’s shining. 

As I flatter not thee Fair,
        So thou art not Fading. 
Age nor sicknes, can impair
        Thy Hue, by feirce invading.
 
Lett the purest varnish’t Clay
        Art can shew, or Nature, 
Veiw the Shades they cast; and they
        Grow duskish like thy Faeture. 

’Tis thy Truth I most commend;
        That thou art not fleeting. 
For as I embrace my Freind,
        So thou giv’st him greeting. 

Yf I strike, or keep the peace,
        So thou seem’st to threaten, 
And single blowes by thy increase
        Leave my Foe double beaten. 

As thou find’st mee walke, or sitt,
        Standing, or downe lying, 
Thou doest all my postures hitt,
        Most Apish in thy prying. 

When our Actions so consent,
        (Expressions dumb, but locall,) 
Words are needles Compliment,
        Else I could wish thee vocall. 

Hadst thou but a soul, with sense
        And Reason sympathising 
Earth could not match, nor heav’n dispense
        A Mate so farr entising. 

Nay, when bedded in thee Dust
        ’Mongst shades I have my biding,
Tapers can see thy Posthume trust
        Within my vault residing. 

Had Heav’n so plyant Women made,
        Or thou their Souls couldst marry 
I’ld soone resolve to wedd my shade, 
        This love would ne’r miscarry. 

But they thy Lightnes onely share;
        Yf shunn’d, the more they follow: 
And to Pursuers peevish are 
        As Daphne to Apollo. 

Yet this experience Thou hast taught: 
        A Snee-Freind, and an Honour, 
Like thee; nor That, nor Shee, is caught 
        Unles I fall upon hir.

1. To the Queen at Oxford
2. On Two Children Dying Of One Disease, And Buried In One Grave
3. The Boyes Answer To The Blackmoor
4. Another Of The Same, Paraphrased For An Antheme
5. Upon A Table-Book Presented To A Lady

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