| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | Proferred Love Rejected | | By Sir John Suckling (1609–1642) |
| | (From Poems, 1638)
IT is not four years ago, | |
| I offered forty crowns | |
| To lie with her a night or so: | |
| She answer’d me in frowns. | |
| |
| Not two years since, she meeting me | 5 |
| Did whisper in my ear, | |
| That she would at my service be, | |
| If I contented were. | |
| |
| I told her I was cold as snow, | |
| And had no great desire; | 10 |
| But should be well content to go | |
| To twenty, but no higher. | |
| |
| Some three months since or thereabout, | |
| She that so coy had been, | |
| Bethought herself and found me out, | 15 |
| And was content to sin. | |
| |
| I smiled at that, and told her I | |
| Did think it something late, | |
| And that I’d not repentance buy | |
| At above half the rate. | 20 |
| |
| This present morning early she | |
| Forsooth came to my bed, | |
| And gratis there she offered me | |
| Her high-prized maidenhead. | |
| |
| I told her that I thought it then | 25 |
| Far dearer than I did, | |
| When I at first the forty crowns | |
| For one night’s lodging bid. | | | | |
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