No @3Spring@1, nor @3Summer@1 Beauty hath such grace, As I have seen in one @3Autumnall@1 face. Yong @3Beauties@1 force our love, and that's a @3Rape@1, This doth but @3counsaile@1, yet you cannot scape. If t'were a @3shame@1 to love, here t'were no @3shame@1, @3Affection@1 here takes @3Reverences@1 name. Were her first yeares the @3Golden Age@1; That's true, But now shee's @3gold@1 oft tried, and ever new. That was her torrid and inflaming time, This is her tolerable @3Tropique clyme@1. Faire eyes, who askes more heate then comes from hence, He in a fever wishes pestilence. Call not these wrinkles, @3graves@1; If @3graves@1 they were, They were @3Loves graves@1; for else he is no where. Yet lies not Love @3dead@1 here, but here doth sit Vow'd to this trench, like an @3Anachorit@1. And here, till hers, which must be his @3death@1, come, He doth not digge a @3Grave@1, but build a @3Tombe@1, Here dwells he, though he sojourne ev'ry where, In @3Progresse@1, yet his standing house is here. Here, where still @3Evening@1 is; not @3noone@1, nor @3night@1; Where no @3voluptuousnesse@1, yet all @3delight@1. In all her words, unto all hearers fit, You may at @3Revels@1, you at @3Counsaile@1, sit. This is loves timber, youth his under-wood; There he, as wine in @3June@1, enrages blood, Which then comes seasonabliest, when our tast And appetite to other things, is past. @3Xerxes@1 strange @3Lydian@1 love, the @3Platane@1 tree, Was lov'd for age, none being so large as shee, Or else because, being young, nature did blesse Her youth with ages glory, @3Barrennesse@1. If we love things long sought, @3Age@1 is a thing Which we are fifty yeares in compassing. If transitory things, which soone decay, @3Age@1 must be lovelyest at the latest day. But name not @3Winter-faces@1, whose skin's slacke; Lanke, as an unthrifts purse; but a soules sacke; Whose @3Eyes@1 seeke light within, for all here's shade; Whose @3mouthes@1 are holes, ratherworne out, then made; Whose every tooth to a severall place is gone, To vexe their soules at @3Resurrection@1; Name not these living @3Deaths-heads@1 unto mee, For these, not @3Ancient@1, but @3Antique@1 be. I hate extreames; yet I had rather stay With @3Tombs@1, then @3Cradles@1, to weare out a day. Since such loves naturall lation is, may still My love descend, and journey downe the hill, Not panting after growing beauties, so, I shall ebbe out with them, who home-ward goe. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE JOYS OF THE ROAD by BLISS CARMAN A PRAYER, LIVING AND DYING by AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY LEXINGTON; 1775 by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER MOTHER HEART by NELLIE COOLEY ALDER CELEBRATION ODE by LYMAN WHITNEY ALLEN |