Whoever loves, if he do not
The right true end of love, he's one that
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
Love is a bear-whelp born : if we
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,
We err, and of a lump a monster make.
Were not a calf a monster, that were
Faced like a man, though better than his own ?
Perfection is in unity ;
One woman first, and then one thing in her.
I, when I value gold, may think
The ductileness, the application,
The wholesomeness, the ingenuity,
From rust, from soil, from fire ever free ;
But if I love it, 'tis because 'tis
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
They love them for that, by which they're not they ?
Makes virtue woman ? must I cool my
Till I both be, and find one wise and good ?
May barren angels love so.
But if
Make love to woman, virtue is not she,
As beauty is not, nor wealth.
He that strays
From her to hers is more
Than if he took her maid.
Search every
And firmament, our Cupid is not there.
He's an infernal God, and
With Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound.
Men to such gods their sacrificing
Did not on altars lay, but pits and holes.
Although we see celestial bodies
Above the earth, the earth we till and love.
So we her airs contemplate, words and heart,
And virtues, but we love the centric part.
Nor is the soul more worthy, or more
For love, than this, as infinite as it.
But in attaining this desired
How much they err, that set out at the face ?
The hair a forest 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
Immortal stay, but wrinkled 'tis a grave.
The nose, like to the first meridian,
Not 'twixt an east and west, but 'twixt two suns ;
It leaves a cheek, a rosy hemisphere,
On either side, and then directs us
Upon the islands fortunate we fall,
Not faint Canaries, but ambrosial,
Her swelling lips, to which when we are come,
We anchor there, and think ourselves at home,
For they seem all ; there Sirens' songs and
Wise Delphic oracles do fill the ear.
There, 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
The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,
Not of two lovers, but two loves, the nests,
Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine
Some island moles may scattered there descry ;
And sailing towards her India, in that
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.
When thou art there, consider what this
Misspent by thy beginning at the face.
Rather set out below ; practise thy art ;
Some symmetry the foot hath with that
Which thou dost seek, and is thy map for that,
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
Firmness ; 'tis the first part that comes to bed.
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
Rise from the foot, lovers may do so too ;
For, as free spheres move faster far than
Birds, whom the air resists, so may that
Which goes this empty and ethereal way,
Than if at beauty's elements he stay.
Rich Nature in women wisely
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,
As who by clyster gives the stomach meat.
