A Celebration of Charis I His Excuse for Loving
Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years, I have had, and have, my peers; Poets, though divine, are men, Some have lov'd as old again. And it is not always face, Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace; Or the feature, or the youth. But the language and the truth, With the ardour and the passion, Gives the lover weight and fashion. If you then will read the story, First prepare you to be sorry That you never knew till now Either whom to love or how; But be glad, as soon with me, When you know that this is she Of whose beauty it was sung; She shall make the old man young, Keep the middle age at stay, And let nothing high decay, Till she be the reason why All the world for love may die.
Composition
Form: couplets1.
A poem in ten lyric pieces, first printed in Works, 1640.
Most of the poem was probably written before 1616, when The Devil is an Ass, containing the last two stanzas of \
Ben Jonson
Other author posts
IV To The World
A farewell for a Gentlewoman, vertuous and False world, good-night, since thou hast brought That houre upon my morne of age, Hence-forth I quit thee from my thought, My part is ended on thy stage Doe not once hope, that thou canst t...
I Why I Write Not To Love
Some act of Love's bound to reherse, I thought to bind him, in my verse: Which when he felt, Away (quoth he)Can Poets hope to fetter me
On My First Daughter
Here lies, to each her parents' ruth, Mary, the daughter of their youth; Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due, It makes the father less to rue
IX Song To Celia
Drink to me, only, with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kisse but in the cup, And Ile not look for wine The thirst, that from the soule doth rise, Doth aske a drink divine: But might I of Jove's Nectar sup, I wou...
