| |
| SHALL I go force an elegy? abuse | |
| My wit, and break the hymen of my Muse | |
| For one poor hour’s love? deserve it such | |
| Which serves not me to do on her as much? | |
| Or, if it could, I would that fortune shun— | 5 |
| Who would be rich, to be so soon undone? | |
| The beggar’s best, 1 his wealth he doth not know, | |
| And but to show it him increaseth woe. | |
| But we two may enjoy an hour; when never | |
| It returns, who would have a loss for ever? | 10 |
| Nor can so short a love, if true, but bring | |
| A half-hour’s fear with thought of the losing. | |
| Before it all hours were hope, and all are, | |
| That shall come after it, years of despair. | |
| This joy brings this doubt, whether it were more | 15 |
| To have enjoyed it or to have died before. | |
| ’Tis a lost Paradise, a fall from grace, | |
| Which I think Adam felt more than his race; | |
| Nor need those angels any other hell; | |
| It is enough for them from heaven they fell. | 20 |
| Beside, conquest in love is all in all, | |
| That, when I list, she under me may fall; | |
| And for this turn, both for delight and view, | |
| I’ll have a Succuba as good as you. | |
| But when these toys are past, and hot blood ends, | 25 |
| The best enjoying is, we still are friends. | |
| Love can but be friendship’s outside; their two | |
| Beauties differ as minds and bodies do. | |
| Thus I this great good still would be to take, | |
| Unless one hour another happy make, | 30 |
| Or that I might forget it instantly, | |
| Or in that blest estate that I might die. | |
| But why do I thus travail in the skill | |
| Of despised poetry, and perchance spill | |
| My fortune, or undo myself in sport | 35 |
| By having but that dangerous name in court? | |
| I’ll leave, and since I do your poet prove, | |
| Keep you my lines as secret as my love. | |
