English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 162. His Supposed Mistress |
| | | Ben Jonson (1573–1637) |
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| IF I freely can discover | |
| What would please me in my lover, | |
| I would have her fair and witty, | |
| Savouring more of court than city; | |
| A little proud, but full of pity; | 5 |
| Light and humourous in her toying; | |
| Oft building hopes, and soon destroying; | |
| Long, but sweet in the enjoying, | |
| Neither too easy, nor too hard: | |
| All extremes I would have barred. | 10 |
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| She should be allowed her passions, | |
| So they were but used as fashions; | |
| Sometimes froward, and then frowning, | |
| Sometimes sickish, and then swowning, | |
| Every fit with change still crowning. | 15 |
| Purely jealous I would have her; | |
| Then only constant when I crave her, | |
| ’Tis a virtue should not save her. | |
| Thus, nor her delicates would cloy me, | |
| Neither her peevishness annoy me. | 20 |
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