Tixall Poetry/For Love
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For Love.
Unhappy East! not, in that awe
You pay your lords, whose will is law;
But in your owne unmanly reigne
O'er the soft sex, and proud disdayne.
What state would bring the valew downe
Of treasure, which is all their owne?
Ther thoughts to worthless objects move,
Who thus suppress the growth of Love.
Love, that extends the high desire,
Love, that improves the manly fire;
And makes the price of beauty rise,
And all our wishes multiplyes.
Such high content dwells not in sence—
Nor can the captiv'd fay re dispense
Such sweets as these, no servile dame
Can with her beauty feed this flame.
Such joyes as these require a hart
In which no other love hath part.
Ah! who would prise his liberty,
(This faint, weak pleasure, to be free,)
Deare as those wounds which love can give?
Those bonds in which his servants live?—
Who, tost in wandring, loose desire,
Vary their love, disperse their fire;
Ayme at no more but to repeate
The thirst of sence, and quench that heate.
Let my collected passion rise,
All, and to one a sacrifice.
I feare not her discerning breast
Should bee with other love imprest,
Be to the proud resigned a prey,
Or to the loud, or to the gay.
Why should distorted nature prove
More lovely then my humble love?
What taught the elder times success
In love, but humbleness?
The nymphes resigned their virgin feares
To nothing but the shepherd's tears.
Nature with wise distrust doth arme,
And guard that tender sex from harme.
Long waiting love doth passage find
Into the slow-believing mind.
Jove, when he would with love comply,
Is said to lay his thunder by:
Too rough, he thinks, the shape of man—
Now in the softness of a swan,
Now like another nymph appeares,
And so beguiles Calista's feares.
By force, hee would have soone comprest
That which contents the ruder East:
But he, by this diviner art,
Makes conquest of the heavenly part.
S. Godolphin.
You pay your lords, whose will is law;
But in your owne unmanly reigne
O'er the soft sex, and proud disdayne.
What state would bring the valew downe
Of treasure, which is all their owne?
Ther thoughts to worthless objects move,
Who thus suppress the growth of Love.
Love, that extends the high desire,
Love, that improves the manly fire;
And makes the price of beauty rise,
And all our wishes multiplyes.
Such high content dwells not in sence—
Nor can the captiv'd fay re dispense
Such sweets as these, no servile dame
Can with her beauty feed this flame.
Such joyes as these require a hart
In which no other love hath part.
Ah! who would prise his liberty,
(This faint, weak pleasure, to be free,)
Deare as those wounds which love can give?
Those bonds in which his servants live?—
Who, tost in wandring, loose desire,
Vary their love, disperse their fire;
Ayme at no more but to repeate
The thirst of sence, and quench that heate.
Let my collected passion rise,
All, and to one a sacrifice.
I feare not her discerning breast
Should bee with other love imprest,
Be to the proud resigned a prey,
Or to the loud, or to the gay.
Why should distorted nature prove
More lovely then my humble love?
What taught the elder times success
In love, but humbleness?
The nymphes resigned their virgin feares
To nothing but the shepherd's tears.
Nature with wise distrust doth arme,
And guard that tender sex from harme.
Long waiting love doth passage find
Into the slow-believing mind.
Jove, when he would with love comply,
Is said to lay his thunder by:
Too rough, he thinks, the shape of man—
Now in the softness of a swan,
Now like another nymph appeares,
And so beguiles Calista's feares.
By force, hee would have soone comprest
That which contents the ruder East:
But he, by this diviner art,
Makes conquest of the heavenly part.
S. Godolphin.