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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JILTED by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR A BETTER RESURRECTION by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE SHEPHERD-BOY AND THE WOLF by AESOP THE CANAL by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE SHEPHERD'S PIPE: SEVENTH ECLOGUE by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) VICTORIA'S TEARS by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING VENICE; A FRAGMENT by GEORGE GORDON BYRON |