NAY now I'm sure my judgement's sound, Since ripe experience is its ground. Why, I my self have felt & seen Thy tedious vanity; Fond shameless World, & canst thou ween I will for thee ev'n common sense deny? 2 Thou wear'st a beauteous skin, I grant; And do the deadly Serpents want Those dangerous hypocrisies? Or is the Poisons soule Less its curs'd self, bycause it lies In the brave ambush of a golden boule? 3 When Israels, & Wisdomes, King Did stoutly to the touchstone bring Thy fairest Peeces, did not they Prove base-bred counterfets; Whose stamp though neat, & colour gay, Their purest ore was but refined Cheats. 4 And oh that I had been content To rest on his Experiment! But since I at the cost have been By thee deceivd to be, 'Tis not another World could win My heart to dote: or trust on empty thee. 5 Go fawn on those whose frothy minde Can solace in a bubble finde, And Juno in a Clowd imbrace; Who by the lying Paint Which smiles upon their Idols face Doubt not to count the beauties of their Saint. 6 And yet thy Paint's so silly too, It can no warey Lover woo. Indeed good Shaddows sprucely show; But where the Picture is Nothing besides, (and such art thou) It proves but artificial Ouglines. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OLD KING COLE by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON AUTUMN (1) by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI HOUSEHOLD POEMS: 1. BRONWEN by PHILIP EDWARD THOMAS AN EVENING by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM KNAPWEED by ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 113, TO ONE WITH HIS SONNETS by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |