Edmund Waller

3 March 1606 – 21 October 1687 / Coleshill / Buckinghamshire / England

While I Listen To Thy Voice

While I listen to thy voice,
Chloris, I feel my life decay;
That powerful noise
Calls my flitting soul away.
Oh! suppress that magic sound,
Which destroys without a wound.

Peace, Chloris, peace! or singing die,
That together you and I
To heaven may go;
For all we know
Of what the blessed do above
Is, that they sing and that they love.
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