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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  Beauty and Desire

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Beauty and Desire

Anonymous
 
(A Broadside Song with music, c. 1720)

ALL the materials are the same,
  Of Beauty and Desire,
In fair Woman’s Goodly Frame
No Brightness is without a Flame;
  No Flame without a Fire.        5
Then tell me what those Creatures are
Who would be thought both Chaste and Fair.
 
If on her Neck her Hair be spread,
  With many a curious Ring;
That Heat, which serves to curl her Head        10
Will make her mad to be abed
  And do another Thing.
 
If Modesty itself appear
  With Blushes in her Face,
Think you the Blood that dances there,        15
Can revel it no other where?
  Or warm no other Place?
 
And but of her Philosophy,
  What gives her Lips the Balm?
What makes her Breasts to heave so high?        20
What spirits give Motion to her Eye,
  And moisture to her palm?
 
Then, Celia, be not coy, for that
  Betrays thyself and thee;
There’s not a Beauty nor a Grace,        25
Bedecks thy Body or thy Face,
  But pleads within for me.
Then tell me what those Women are
Who would be thought both Chaste and Fair.