FullReads

‘And not the least of all these maladies
But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under:
Both favour, savour hue, and qualities,
Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder, . . .748
Are on the sudden wasted, thaw’d and done,
As mountain-snow melts with the mid-day sun.

‘Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity,
Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns, . . . 752
That on the earth would breed a scarcity
And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,
Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night
Dries up his oil to lend the world his light. . .756

‘What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity
Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity? . . . 760
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.

‘So in thyself thyself art made away;
A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife, . . 764
Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,
Or butcher-sire that reeves his son of life.
Foul-cankering rust the hidden treasure frets,
But gold that’s put to use more gold begets.’ . .768

‘Nay then,’ quoth Adon, ‘you will fall again
Into your idle over-handled theme;
The kiss I gave you is bestow’d in vain,
And all in vain you strive against the stream; . . 772
For by this black-fac’d night, desire’s foul nurse,
Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.

‘If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,
And every tongue more moving than your own, . . . 776
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid’s songs,
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;
For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,
And will not let a false sound enter there; . . 780

‘Lest the deceiving harmony should run
Into the quiet closure of my breast;
And then my little heart were quite undone,
In his bedchamber to be barr’d of rest. . . . . 784
No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,
But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.

‘What have you urg’d that I cannot reprove? . . .
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger; . . 790
I hate not love, but your device in love
That lends embracements unto every stranger.
You do it for increase: O strange excuse!
When reason is the bawd to lust’s abuse. . . . 792

‘Call it not, love, for Love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp’d his name;
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame; . . . 796
Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,
As caterpillars do the tender leaves.

‘Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust’s effect is tempest after sun; . . . . 800
Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust’s winter comes ere summer half be done.
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies. . . 804

‘More I could tell, but more I dare not say;
The text is old, the orator too green.
Therefore, in sadness, now I will away;
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen: . . . 808
Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended
Do burn themselves for having so offended.’

With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace . . .811
Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,
And homeward through the dark laund runs apace; . .
Leaves Love upon her back deeply distress’d.
Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky
So glides he in the night from Venus’ eye; . . .816