Suckling. Lutea Allison.

Sir John Suckling

LUTEA ALLISON

Si sola es, nulla es

THOUGH you, Diana-like, have liv'd still chaste,
Yet must you not (fair) die a maid at last :
The roses on your cheeks were never made
To bless the eye alone, and so to fade ;
Nor had the cherries on your lips their being,
To please no other sense than that of seeing :
You were not made to look on, though that be
A bliss too great for poor mortality :
In that alone those rarer parts you have,
To better uses sure wise nature gave
Than that you put them to ; to love, to wed,
For Hymen's rights, and for the marriage-bed
You were ordain'd, and not to lie alone ;
One is no number, till that two be one.
To keep a maidenhead but till fifteen,
Is worse than murder, and a greater sin
Than to have lost it in the lawful sheets
With one that should want skill to reap those sweets :
But not to lose 't at all—by Venus, this,
And by her son, inexpiable is ;
And should each female guilty be o' th' crime,
The world should have its end before its time.

Source:
Suckling, John. The Works of Sir John Suckling. A. Hamilton Thompson, ed.
London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1910. 57.

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