Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SECOND BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 1, by THOMAS CAMPION


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SECOND BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 1, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Vain men, whose follies make a god of love
Last Line: Men must be men, and women women still.
Subject(s): Love


VAIN men, whose follies make a god of Love,
Whose blindness beauty doth immortal deem;
Praise not what you desire but what you prove,
Count those things good that are, not those that seem;
I cannot call her true that's false to me,
Nor make of women more than women be.

How fair an entrance breaks the way to love!
How rich of golden hope and gay delight!
What heart cannot a modest beauty move?
Who, seeing clear day once, will dream of night?
She seemed a saint, that brake her faith with me,
But proved a woman as all other be.

So bitter is their sweet that true content
Unhappy men in them may never find:
Ah! but without them none. Both must consent,
Else uncouth are the joys of either kind.
Let us then praise their good, forget their ill!
Men must be men, and women women still.





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