| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | The Song of Lais | | By Thomas Heywood (c. 1570–1641) |
| | (From Earth and Age, c. 1637)
IF any fables have been sung in praise | |
| Of Prostitutes, what fame their shapes could raise; | |
| I, the Corinthian Lais, choice and best, | |
| Have been the crown and grace to all the rest. | |
| My chin the ivory stained, lilies my brow, | 5 |
| To match mine eyes, the world knew not then how; | |
| My neck was long and straight, and my veins blue, | |
| Soft lips, in my clear cheeks fresh roses grew; | |
| My nose was neither crooked, long nor flat, | |
| My visage it became, it graced that: | 10 |
| My wanton paps like two round hillocks grew, | |
| From which moist springs two milky rivers flow, | |
| My belly comely swelled, for it became | |
| Like a plump Peacock’s, soft as the young lamb: | |
| My stomach like the temperate turtles feeding; | 15 |
| Modest my diet and no surfeits breeding; | |
| My arms much whiter than the lilies showing, | |
| Or flowers, Alcinous, in thy garden growing. | |
| Who that my leg did look upon, but did think | |
| He burnt in flames, or in the seas did sink? | 20 |
| Or who my back parts did behold, but said, | |
| O that I were a flea in Lais bed. | |
| Or who my foot, but wished himself a stone, | |
| With upturned eyes, for me to tread upon. | |
| And yet this face, these cheeks, these lips, these eyes, | 25 |
| This neck, these hairs, these temples, legs and thighs, | |
| This stomach, belly, back, arms, hands and feet | |
| Are worms’ meat now, and with corruption meet. | |
| Learn, woman, then, that which we trust in most | |
| Is dust and filth: In age are all things lost. | 30 | | | |
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