Alas, poor soul, think you to master love With constant faith; do you hope true devotion Cay stay that godhead, which lives but to move, And turn men's hearts, like vanes, with outward motion? No! Proud desire, thou run'st misfortune's way, Love is to hers, like vessels made of glass, Delightful while they do not fall away, But broken, never brought to that it was. When honor's audit calls for thy receipt, And chargeth on thy head much time misspent, Nature corrupted by thy vain conceit, Thy reason servile, poor, and passion-rent. What shall be thy excuse, what canst thou say? That thou hast erred out of love and wonder? No heretic, thou Cupid dost betray And with religion wouldst bring princes under. By merit banish chance from beauty's sky, Set other laws in women's hearts than will; Cut change's wings, that she no more may fly, Hoping to make that constant which is ill; Therefore the doom is, wherein thou must rest, Myra that scorns thee shall love many best. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...UNDER THE CEDARCROFT CHESTNUT by SIDNEY LANIER HUMAN LIFE: ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE CLARE'S DRAGOONS by THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS HYSTERIA by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT A DOUBLE STANDARD by FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER AS THE GREEK'S SIGNAL FLAME by WALT WHITMAN |