| |
| WHOEVER loves, if he do not propose | |
| The right true end of love, he’s one that goes | |
| To sea for nothing but to make him sick. | |
| Love is a bear-whelp born; if we o’er-lick | |
| Our love, and force it new strange shapes 1 to take, | 5 |
| We err, and of a lump a monster make. | |
| Were not a calf a monster, that were grown | |
| Faced like a man, though better than his own? | |
| Perfection is in unity; prefer | |
| One woman first, and then one thing in her. | 10 |
| I, when I value gold, may think upon | |
| The ductileness, the application, | |
| The wholesomeness, the ingenuity, | |
| From rust, from soil, from fire ever free; | |
| But if I love it, ’tis because ’tis made | 15 |
| By our new nature, use, the soul of trade. | |
| All this in women we might think upon, | |
| —If women had them—and yet love but one. | |
| Can men more injure women than to say | |
| They love them for that, by which they’re not they? | 20 |
| Makes virtue woman? must I cool my blood | |
| Till I both be, and find one wise and good? | |
| May barren angels love so. But if we | |
| Make love to woman, virtue is not she, | |
| As beauty is not, nor wealth. 2 He that strays thus | 25 |
| From her to hers is more adulterous | |
| Than if he took her maid. Search every sphere | |
| And firmament, our Cupid is not there. | |
| He’s an infernal God, and underground | |
| With Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound. | 30 |
| Men to such gods their sacrificing coals | |
| Did not on altars lay, but pits and holes. | |
| Although we see celestial bodies move | |
| Above the earth, the earth we till and love. | |
| So we her airs contemplate, words and heart, | 35 |
| And virtues, but we love the centric part. | |
| Nor is the soul more worthy, or more fit | |
| For love, than this, as infinite as it. | |
| But in attaining this desired place | |
| How much they err, that set out at the face? | 40 |
| The hair a forest 3 is of ambushes, | |
| Of springes, snares, fetters, and manacles; | |
| The brow becalms us when ’tis smooth and plain, | |
| And when ’tis wrinkled, shipwrecks us again; | |
| Smooth, ’tis a paradise, where we would have | 45 |
| Immortal stay, but wrinkled ’tis a grave. | |
| The nose, like to the first meridian, 4 runs | |
| Not ’twixt an east and west, but ’twixt two suns; | |
| It leaves a cheek, a rosy hemisphere, | |
| On either side, and then directs us where | 50 |
| Upon the islands fortunate we fall, | |
| Not faint Canaries, but ambrosial, | |
| Her swelling lips, to which when we are come, 5 | |
| We anchor there, and think ourselves at home, | |
| For they seem all; there Siren’s songs and there | 55 |
| Wise Delphic oracles do fill the ear. | |
| There, 6 in a creek where chosen pearls do swell, | |
| The remora, her cleaving tongue, doth dwell. | |
| These and the glorious promontory, her chin, | |
| O’erpast, and the straight Hellespont 7 between | 60 |
| The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts, | |
| Not of two lovers, but two loves, the nests, | |
| Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine eye | |
| Some island moles may scattered there descry; | |
| And sailing towards her India, in that way | 65 |
| Shall at her fair Atlantic navel stay. | |
| Though there the current be the pilot made, | |
| Yet, ere thou be where thou shouldst be embay’d, | |
| Thou shalt upon another forest set, | |
| Where many shipwreck, and no further get. | 70 |
| When thou art there, consider what this chase | |
| Misspent by thy beginning at the face. | |
| Rather set out below; practise thy art; | |
| Some symmetry the foot hath with that part | |
| Which thou dost seek, and is thy map for that, | 75 |
| Lovely enough to stop, but not stay at. | |
| Least subject to disguise and change it is; | |
| Men say the devil never can change his; | |
| It is the emblem that hath figured | |
| Firmness; ’tis the first part that comes to bed. | 80 |
| Civility we see refined; the kiss, | |
| Which at the face began, transplanted is, | |
| Since to the hand, since to the imperial knee, | |
| Now at the papal foot delights to be. | |
| If kings think that the nearer way, and do | 85 |
| Rise from the foot, lovers may do so too; | |
| For, as free spheres move faster far than can | |
| Birds, whom the air resists, so may that man | |
| Which goes this empty and ethereal way, | |
| Than if at beauty’s elements 8 he stay. | 90 |
| Rich Nature in women wisely made | |
| Two purses, and their mouths aversely laid. | |
| They then, which to the lower tribute owe, | |
| That way which that exchequer looks must go; | |
| He which doth not, his error is as great, | 95 |
| As who by clyster gives the stomach meat. | |
