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| LOVE, in what poison is thy dart | |
| Dipt, when it makes a bleeding heart? | |
| None know, but they who feel the smart. | |
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| It is not thou, but we are blind, | |
| And our corporeal eyes (we find) | 5 |
| Dazzle the optics of our mind. | |
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| Love to our citadel resorts, | |
| Through those deceitful sally-ports, | |
| Our sentinels betray our forts. | |
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| What subtle witchcraft man constrains, | 10 |
| To change his pleasure into pains, | |
| And all his freedom into chains? | |
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| May not a prison or a grave, | |
| Like wedlock, honour’s title have? | |
| That word makes free-born man a slave. | 15 |
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| How happy he that loves not, lives! | |
| Him neither hope nor fear deceives, | |
| To fortune who no hostage gives. | |
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| How unconcern’d in things to come! | |
| If here uneasy, finds at Rome, | 20 |
| At Paris, or Madrid, his home. | |
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| Secure from low and private ends, | |
| His life, his zeal, his wealth attends | |
| His prince, his country, and his friends. | |
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| Danger and honour are his joy; | 25 |
| But a fond wife, or wanton boy, | |
| May all those generous thoughts destroy. | |
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| Then he lays-by the public care, | |
| Thinks of providing for an heir; | |
| Learns how to get, and how to spare. | 30 |
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| Nor fire, nor foe, nor fate, nor night, | |
| The Trojan hero did affright, | |
| Who bravely twice renew’d the fight. | |
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| Though still his foes in number grew, | |
| Thicker their darts and arrows flew, | 35 |
| Yet left alone, no fear he knew. | |
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| But death in all her forms appears, | |
| From every thing he sees and hears, | |
| For whom he leads, and whom he bears. | |
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| Love, making all things else his foes, | 40 |
| Like a fierce torrent, overflows | |
| Whatever doth his course oppose. | |
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| This was the cause the poets sung, | |
| Thy mother from the sea was sprung, | |
| But they were mad to make thee young. | 45 |
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| Her father, not her son, art thou: | |
| From our desires our actions grow; | |
| And from the cause the effect must flow. | |
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| Love is as old as place or time; | |
| ’Twas he the fatal tree did climb, | 50 |
| Grandsire of father Adam’s crime. | |
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| Well may’st thou keep this world in awe; | |
| Religion, wisdom, honour, law, | |
| The tyrant in his triumph draw. | |
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| ’Tis he commands the power aboves; | 55 |
| Phœbus resigns his darts, and Jove | |
| His thunder, to the God of Love. | |
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| To him doth his feign’d mother yield; | |
| Nor Mars (her champion’s) flaming shield | |
| Guards him, when Cupid takes the field. | 60 |
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| He clips Hope’s wings, whose airy bliss | |
| Much higher than fruition is; | |
| But less than nothing if it miss. | |
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| When matches Love alone projects, | |
| The cause transcending the effects, | 65 |
| That wild-fire’s quench’d in cold neglects. | |
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| Whilst those conjunctions prove the best, | |
| Where Love’s of blindness despossest, | |
| By perspectives of interest. | |
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| Though Solomon with a thousand wives, | 70 |
| To get a wise successor strives, | |
| But one (and he a fool) survives. | |
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| Old Rome of children took no care, | |
| They with their friends their beds did share, | |
| Secure t’adopt a hopeful heir. | 75 |
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| Love, drowsy days and stormy nights | |
| Makes; and breaks friendship, whose delights | |
| Feeds, but not glut our appetites. | |
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| Well-chosen friendship, the most noble | |
| Of virtues, all our joys make double, | 80 |
| And into halves divides our trouble. | |
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| But when the unlucky knot we tie, | |
| Care, avarice, fear, and jealousy, | |
| Make friendship languish till it die. | |
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| The wolf, the lion, and the bear, | 85 |
| When they their prey in pieces tear, | |
| To quarrel with themselves forbear. | |
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| Yet timorous deer, and harmless sheep, | |
| When love into their veins doth creep, | |
| That law of nature cease to keep. | 90 |
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| Who then can blame the amorous boy, | |
| Who, the fair Helen to enjoy, | |
| To quench his own, set fire on Troy? | |
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| Such is the world’s preposterous fate, | |
| Amongst all creatures, mortal hate | 95 |
| Love (though immortal) doth create. | |
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| But love may beasts excuse, for they | |
| Their actions not by reason sway, | |
| But their brute appetites obey. | |
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| But man’s that savage beast, whose mind | 100 |
| From reason to self-love declin’d. | |
| Delights to prey upon his kind. | |
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