Merry Drollery, Complete (1670)/Love lies a bleeding
For other versions of this work, see Love lies a Bleeding.
Love lies a bleeding: In Imitation of
Law lies a bleeding.
Lay by your pleading,Love lies a bleeding,Burn all your Poetry, and throw away your reading. Piety is painted, And Truth is tainted,Love is a reprobate, and Schism now is Sainted, The Throne Love doth sit on, We dayly do spit on,
It was not thus, I wis, when Betty rul’d in Britain. But friendship hath faultred, Loves Altars are altered,And he that is the cause, I would his neck were haltred.
When Love did nourish England did flourish,Till holy hate came in and made us all so currish. Now every Widgeon Talks of Religion,And doth as little good as Mahomet and his Pidgeon. Each coxcombe is suiting His words for confuting,But heaven is sooner gain’d by suffering than by disputing. True friendship we smother, And strike at our BrotherApostles never went to God by killing one another.
Let Love but warm ye Nothing can harm ye,When Love is General, there’s Angels in the Army. Love keeps his quarters, And fears no tortures,The bravest fights are written in the Book of Martyrs. Could we be so civill As to do good for evillIt were the only happy way to o’recome the divel. The Flowers Love hath watred, Sedition hath scattred,We talk with tongues of holiness, but act with hearts of hatred.
He that doth know me, And love will shew me;Hath found the nearest noble way to overcome me. He that hath bound me, And then doth wound me,Wins not my heart, doth not conquer, but confound me. In such a condition Love is the physitian,True Love and Reason makes the purest politician. But strife and confusion, Deceit and delusion,Though it seem to thrive at first will make a sad conclusion.
Love is a fewel, A pretious Jewel,’Tis Love must stanch the blood when Fury fights the duel. Love is a loadstone, Hate is a bloodstone,Heaven is the North Point, and Love is the Loadstone. Though fury and scorn Loves Temples have torn,He'll keep his Covenant, and will not be forsworn. His Laws do not border On strife and disorder,He scorns to get his wealth by perjury and murder. What falshood drew in, Grace never grew in,Love wilt not raise him upon anothers ruine. He can present ye With peace and plenty,Love never advanceth one by throwing down of twenty. Where Love is in season, There Truth is and Reason,The soul of Love is never underlaid with Treason. He never doth quarrel For Princely apparrel,Nor ever fixed a chair of state upon a barrel.
Love from the dull pit Of Follies full pitNever took an Anvil out, and put it in a pulpit. Love is no sinker,Truth is no slinker,In mending breaches Love did never play the tinker. Where Vengeance and Lust is, No truth nor trust is,As will appear at last in Gods high Court of Justice. Pity and remorse is The strength of Loves Forces,Paul never converted men by stables fill’d with horses.
Mercy is fading, Truth is degrading,Love is the only cause of Plenty, Peace, & Trading. Love is a fire Made of desire,Whose chief Ambition is to heaven to aspire. It stops the gradation Of fury and passion,It governs all good Families, and best can guide a Nation. The Low Land, the high Land, And my Land, and thy Land,Grew all in common straight when Love had left this Island
Where peace is panting, And rage is ranting,’Tis an undoubted sign the King of Love is wanting. Father and Mother, Sister and Brother,If Love be lacking, quickly mischief one another. Where wrath is, the rod is That ruines our bodies;With hate the divel is, but where Love is God is. Then let us not doubt it, But streight go about it,To bring in Love again, we cannot live without it.
Then let the Graces Crown our embraces,And let us settle all things in their proper places. Lest persecution Cause dissolution,Let all purloyned wealth be made a restitution. For though now it tickles, ’Twill turn all to prickles,Then let’s live in peace, and turn our Swords to sickles. When Noah’s Dove was sent out, Then Gods Pardon went out,They that would have it so, I hope, will say Amen to it.