Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO HIS SCORNFUL MISTRESS, by WILLIAM HAMMOND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO HIS SCORNFUL MISTRESS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Love in's first infant days had's wardrobe full
Last Line: And she his murd'ress is, who now is coy.
Subject(s): Disdain; Love - Complaints; Scorn


LOVE in 's first infant days had's wardrobe full;
Sometimes we found him courting in a Bull:
Then, drest in snowy plumes, his long neck is
Made pliable and fit to reach a kiss:
When aptest for embraces, he became
Either a winding snake, or curling flame:
And cunningly a pressing kiss to gain,
The Virgin's honour in a grape would stain:
When he consulted lawns for privacies,
The Shepherd, or his ram, was his disguise:
But the blood raging to a rape, put on
A Satyr, or a wilder Stallion;
And for variety, in Thetis' court
Did like a dolphin with the Sea-nymph sport:
But since the sad barbarian yoke hath bow'd
The Grecian neck, Love hath less change allow'd:
Contracted lives in eyes; no flaming robes
Wears, but are lent him in your crystal globes:
Not worth a water'd garment, when he wears
That element he steals it from my tears.
A snake he is, alas! when folded in
Your frowns, where too much sting guards the fair skin:
A Shepherd unto cares, and only sips
The blushing grape of your Nectarean lips:
The Ram, Bull, Stallion, Satyrs only fight
Love's battles now in my wild appetite.
He is his Swan too suffers a restraint,
Cygnaean only in my dying plaint.
Since all his actions Love to morals turns,
And faintly now in things less real burns,
In such a weakness contraries destroy,
And she his murd'ress is, who now is coy.





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