Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AGAINST THE LOVE OF GREAT ONES, by RICHARD LOVELACE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AGAINST THE LOVE OF GREAT ONES, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Unhappy youth, betray'd by fate
Last Line: The torch laughs piecemeal to consume.


UNHAPPY youth, betray'd by fate
To such a love hath sainted hate,
And damned those celestial bands
Are only knit with equal hands,
The love of great ones.'Tis a love
Gods are incapable to prove;
For where there is a joy uneven,
There never, never can be heav'n.
'Tis such a love as is not sent
To fiends as yet for punishment;
Ixion willingly doth feel
The gyre of his eternal wheel,
Nor would he now exchange his pain
For clouds and goddesses again.

Wouldst thou with tempests lie? Then bow
To th' rougher furrows of her brow.
Or make a thunderbolt thy choice?
Then catch at her more fatal voice.
Or'gender with the lightning? Try
The subtler flashes of her eye:
Poor Semele well knew the same,
Who both embrac'd her god and flame,
And not alone in soul did burn,
But in this love did ashes turn.

How ill doth majesty enjoy
The bow and gaiety o' th' boy,
As if the purple robe should sit
And sentence give i' th' chair of wit.

Say, ever-dying wretch to whom
Each answer is a certain doom,
What is it that you would possess,
The countess, or the naked Bess?
Would you her gown or title do,
Her box, or gem, her thing or show?
If you mean her, the very her
Abstracted from her character,
Unhappy boy! you may as soon
With fawning wanton with the moon,
Or with an amorous complaint
Get prostitute your very saint.
Not that we are not mortal, or
Fly Venus' altars, or abhor
The selfsame knack for which you pine;
But we (defend us!) are divine,
Female, but madam born, and come
From a right-honourable womb:
Shall we then mingle with the base,
And bring a silver-tinsel race?
Whilst th' issue noble will not pass,
The gold allay'd (almost half brass),
And th' blood in each vein doth appear
Part thick boorinn, part lady clear:
Like to the sordid insects sprung
From father Sun and mother Dung.
Yet lose we not the hold we have,
But faster grasp the trembling slave;
Play at balloon with's heart, and wind
The strings like skeins, steal into his mind
Ten thousand hells, and feigned joys
Far worse than they, whilst like whipp'd boys,
After this scourge he's hush with toys.

This heard, sir, play still in her eyes,
And be a-dying lives, like flies
Caught by their angle-legs, and whom
The torch laughs piecemeal to consume.





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