Richard Lovelace. Against the Love of Great Ones.

Richard Lovelace.

	Against the Love of Great Ones.
	UNHAPPY youth betrayd by Fate To such a Love hath Sainted Hate, And damned those Cælestiall bonds Are onely knit with equal hands ; The Love of Great Ones? 'Tis a Love Gods are incapable to prove ; For where there is a Joy uneven, There never, never can be Heav'n : 'Tis such a Love as is not sent To Fiends as yet for punishment ; Ixion willingly doth feele The Gyre of his eternal wheele, Nor would he now exchange his paine For Cloudes and Goddesses againe. Wouldst thou with tempests lye ? Then bow To th' rougher furrows of her brow, Or make a Thunder-bolt thy Choyce ? Then catch at her more fatal Voyce ; Or 'gender with the Lightning, trye The subtler Flashes of her eye : Poore Semele wel knew the same, Who both imbrac't her God and Flame ; And not alone in Soule did burne, But in this Love did Ashes turne. How il doth Majesty injoy The Bow and Gaity oth' Boy, As if the Purple-roabe should sit, And sentence give ith' Chayr of Wit. Say ever-dying wretch to whom Each answer is a certaine dombe. What is it that you would possesse, The Countes, or the naked Besse ? Would you her Gowne or Title do ? Her Box, or Gem, her Thing or show ? If you meane Her, the very Her Abstracted from her caracter ; Unhappy Boy ! you may as soone With fawning wanton with the Moone, Or with an amorous Complaint Get prostitute your very Saint ; Not that we are not mortal, or Fly Venus Altars, or abhor The selfesame Knack for which you pine ; But we (defend us !) are divine, Female, but Madam borne, and come From a right-honourable Wombe : Shal we then mingle with the base, And bring a silver-tinsell race ? Whilst th' issue Noble wil not passe, The Gold allayd (almost halfe brasse) And th' blood in each veine doth appeare : Part thick Booreinn, part Lady Cleare : Like to the sordid Insects sprung From Father, Sun, and Mother Dung ; Yet lose we not the hold we have, But faster graspe the trembling slave ; Play at Baloon with's heart, and winde The strings like scaines, steale into his minde Ten thousand Hells and feigned Joyes Far worse then they, whilst like whipt Boys, After this scourge hee's hush with Toys. This heard Sir, play stil in her eyes, And be a dying, Lives, like Flyes Caught by their Angle-legs, and whom The Torch laughs peece-meale to consume. Gyre—Whirling round.

Source:
Lovelace, Richard. The Poems of Richard Lovelace.
London: Unit Library, Ltd., 1904. 66-68.

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