If fair, I must; if brown she be, She's lovely, and for sympathy,

'Cause we're alike, I love her;
If tall, she's proper; and if short,
She's humble, and I love her for't.
Small's pretty, fat is pleasant, every sort
Some graceful good discover;

If young, she's pliant to the sport;
And if her visage carry

Gray hairs and wrinkles, yet I'll court,
And so turn antiquary.

Be her hair red, be her lips gray or blue,
Or any other hue,

Or has she but the ruins of a nose,
Or but eye-sockets, I'll love those;

Though scales, not skin, does clothe her,
Though from her lungs the scent that comes
Does rout her teeth out of their gums,
I'll count all this for high encomiums,

Nor wil! I therefore loath her. There are no rules for beauty, but 'Tis as our fancies make it:

Be you but kind, I'll think you fair,
And all for truth shall take it.

THE RESOLVE.

TELL me not of a face that's fair,
Nor lip and cheek that's red,
Nor of the tresses of her hair,
Nor curls in order laid;
Nor of a rare seraphic voice,

That like an angel sings;
Though if I were to take my choice,
I would have all these things.
But if that thou wilt have me love,

And it must be a she:
The only argument can move
Is, that she will love me.

The glories of your ladies be
But metaphors of things,
And but resemble what we sce

Each common object brings. Roses out-red their lips and cheeks,

Lilies their whiteness stain: What fool is he that shadows seeks, And may the substance gain! Then if thou'lt have me love a lass, Let it be one that's kind, Else I'm a servant to the glass, That's with Canary liu'd.

Though you are witty, what care I?
My danger is the more:

Nay, should you boast of honesty,
Woman gives all those naines the lie:
In all you hardly can

Write after that fair copy, man,
And dabble in the steps we've gone before.
We you admire, as we do parrots all,
Not speaking well, but that they speak at all.
That lass mine arms desire t'enfold,
Born in the golden age,
Guarded with angels, but of gold;
She that's in such a shower enroll'd,

May tempt a Jove to be

Guilty of love's idolatry,

And make a pleasure of an hermitage;

Tho' their teeth are not, if their necks wear pearl, A kitchen wench is consort for an earl.

"'Tis money makes the man," you say, 'T shall make the woman too; When both are clad in like array, December rivals youthful May:

This rules the world, and this Perfection of both sexes is;

This Flora made a goddess, so 'twill you: This makes us laugh, this makes us drink and sing: This makes the beggar trample o'er his king.

WHY'S

THE COUNST L.

my friend so melancholy? Pr'ythee why so sad, why so sad? Beauty's vain, and love's a folly,

Wealth and women make men mad.
To him that has a heart that's jolly,
Nothing's grievous, nothing's sad..
Come, cheer up, my lad.

Does thy mistress seem to fly thee?
Pr'ythee don't repine, don't repine:
If at first she does deny thee
Of her love, deny her thine;
She shows her coyness but to try thee,
And will triumph if thou pine.

Drown thy thoughts in wine.

Try again, and don't give over,
Ply her she's thine own, she's thine own:
Cowardice undoes a lover.

They are tyrants if you moan;

If nor thyself, nor love, can move her,
But she'll slight thee, and be gone:
Let her then alone.

If thy courtship can't invite her,
Nor to condescend, nor to bend,
Thy only wisdom is to slight her,
And her beauty discommend.
Such a niceness will require her;
Yet, if thy love will not end,

Love thyself and friend.

THE WARY WOOER.

FAITH, you're mistaken, I'll not love

That face that frowns on me:

Though it be handsome, 't shall not move My centred soul, that's far above

The magic of a paint,

That on a devil writes a saint: I hate your pictures and imagery. I'm no love-sinon, nor will tamely now

Lie swaddled in the trenches of your brow.

TO HIS MISTRESS.

LADY, you'll wonder when you see
With those bright twins of eyes,
The ragged lines that crawl from me,
And note the contrariety

That both in them and in their author lies.

I that came hither with a breast

Coated with mail about;
Proof 'gainst your beauty, and the rest,
And had no room for love to nest,

Where reason lodg'd within, and love kept out.

My thoughts turn'd, like the needle, about,
Touched by magnetic love:

And fain would find some north-pole out,
But waver'd 'twixt desire and doubt;

Till now they're fix'd, and point to you above.

Lend me one ray, and do but shine

Upon my verse and me;

Your beauty can enrich a line,

And so you'll make 'em yours, not mine; Since there's no Helicon like love and thee.

But thou, I warrant thee, do'st suppose

This new design will slay me,

And ravel out my life with woes,

Till death, at last, mine eyes shall close; That all may read, "Lo! here I lie Tomb'd in thy heart, slain by thine eye."

But I, I vow, will be more wise,

And love with such discretion.
When I read coyness in thy eyes,
I'll robe mine with like cruelties,
And kill with prepossession.
Then I'll turn stone, and so will be
An endless monument to thee.

TO HIS MISTRESS.

Way dost thou frown, my dear, on me?
Come, change that angry face.
What though I kiss'd that prodigy,
And did her ugly limbs embrace?

'Twas only 'cause thou wert in place.
Had I suck'd poison from her breath,
One kiss could set me free:
Thy lip's an antidote 'gainst death;
Nor would I ever wish to be

Cur'd of a sickness but by thee.

The little birds for dirt repair
Down from the purer sky,

And shall not I kiss foul and fair?

Wilt thou give birds more pow'r than 1?
Fie! 'tis a scrupulous nicety.

When all the world I've ranged about,
All beauties else to spy,

And, at the last, can find none out
Equal to thee in beauty, I

Will make thee my sole deity.

THE HARD HEART.

STILL so hard-hearted? what may be
The sin thou hast committed;
That now the angry deity
Has to a rock congealed thee,

And thus thy hardness fitted?

To make one act both sin and curse,
And plague thy hardness with a worse.

Till thee there never was but one

Was to a rock translated,
Poor Niobe, that weeping stone:
She rever did, thou ne'er dost, moan,
Nor is thy scorn abated.

The tears send to thee are grown
Of that same nature, and tura stone.

Yet 1, dear rock, must worship thee,
Love works this superstition,
And justifies th' idolatry
That's shown to such a stone as thee,
Where it foreruns fruition.
Thou'rt so magnetic, that I can
No more leave thee than to be man.

LOVE'S ANARCHY.

LOVE, I must tell thee, I'll no longer be
A victim to thy beardless deity:
Nor shall this heart of mine,,
Now 'tis return'd,

Be offer'd at thy shrine,

Or at thine altar burn'd.

Love, like religion,'s made an airy name,

To awe those fools whom want of wit makes tame.

There's no such thing as quiver, shafts, or bow,
Nor does love wound, but men imagine so.
Or if it does perplex

And grieve the mind,

'Tis the poor masculine sex:

Women no sorrows find.

'Tis not our persons, nor our parts, can move 'em, Nor is't men's worth, but wealth, make ladies love

'em.

Reason henceforth, not love, shall be my guide, My fellow-creatures shan't be deified;

I'll now a rebel be,

And so pull down

That distaff-monarchy,

And females' fancy'd crown.

In these unbridled times who would not strive To free his neck from all prerogative?

THE CONTRARY.

NAY, pr'ythee do be coy, and slight me,
I must love, though thou abhor it;
This pretty niceness does invite ine:
Scorn me, and I'll love thee for it.
That world of beauty that is in you,
I'll overcome like Alexander.
In amorous flames I can continue

Unsing'd, and prove a salamander.
Do not be won too soon, I pr'ythee,

But let me woo, whilst thou dost fly me. 'Tis my delight to dally with thee,

I'll court thee still if thou'lt deny me; For there's no happiness but loving,

Enjoyment makes our pleasures flat. Give me the heart that's always moving, And's not confin'd t' one you know what.

I've fresh supplies on all occasions,

Of thoughts, as yarious as your face is; No directory for evasions,

Nor will I court by common-places.

'Tis ladies' liquor: here one might Feast both his eye and appetite

With beauty and with taste,
Cherries and roses, which you seek
Upon your mistress' lip and cheek,
Are here together plac'd.

Physicians may prescribe their whey
To purge our reins and brains away,
And clarify the blood;

That cures one sickness with another,
This routs by wholesale altogether,
And drowns them in a flood.

This poets makes, else how could I
Thus ramble into poetry,

Nay, and write sonnets too;
If there's such pow'r in junior wines,
To make one venture upon lines
What could Canary do?

Then squeeze the vessel's howels out,
And deal it faithfully about,

Crown each hand with a brinemer;
Since we're to pass through this red sea,
Our noses shall our pilots be,
And every soul a swimmer.

A MOCK SONG.

'Tis true, I never was in love:
But now I mean to be,

For there's no art
Can shield a heart

From love's supremacy.
Though in my nonage I have seen.
A world of taking faces,

I had not age or wit to ken
Their several hidden graces.

Those virtues which, though thinly set,
In others are admired,

In thee are altogether met,

Which make thee so desired. That though I never was in love, Nor never meant to be,

Thyself and parts

Above my arts

Have drawn my heart to thee.

Th' enamour'd youth, whose flaming breast
Makes goddesses and angels all,
In's contemplation finds no rest,
For all his joys are sceptical,
At his fruition flings away
His Cloris and his welladay,
And gladly joins to fill our choir:
Who to such happiness aspire,
As all must envy or admire.

LOVE'S WITHOut reason.

'Tis not my lady's face that makes me love her,
Though beauty there doth rest,
Enough t' inflame the breast

Of one, that never did discover

The glories of a face before;

But I that have seen thousands more,
See nought in hers but what in others are,
Only because I think she's fair, she's fair.

'Tis not her virtues, nor those vast perfections,
That crowd together in her,
Engage my soul to win her,
For those are only brief collections
Of what's in man in folio writ;
Which, by their imitative wit,

Women, like apes and children, strive to do;
But we that have the substance slight the show.
'Tis not her birth, her friends, nor yet her treasure,
My freeborn soul can hold ;

For chains are chains, though gold:
Nor do I court her for my pleasure,

Nor for that old morality

Do I love her, 'cause she loves me :
For that's no love, but gratitude, and all
Loves, that from fortunes rise, with fortunes fall.

If friends or birth created love within me,
Then princes I'll adore,

And only scorn the poor:

If virtue or good parts could win me,
I'd turn Platonic, and ne'er vex

My soul with difference of sex;
And he that loves his lady 'cause she's fair,
Delights his eye, so loves himself, not her.
Reason and wisdom are to love high treason;
Nor can he truly love,

Whose flame's not far above,
And far beyond his wit or reason;

Then ask no reason for my fires,
For infinite are my desires.

Something there is moves me to love, and I
Do know I love, but know not how, nor why