VAIN men, whose follies make a god of Love, Whose blindness beauty doth immortal deem; Praise not what you desire but what you prove, Count those things good that are, not those that seem; I cannot call her true that's false to me, Nor make of women more than women be. How fair an entrance breaks the way to love! How rich of golden hope and gay delight! What heart cannot a modest beauty move? Who, seeing clear day once, will dream of night? She seemed a saint, that brake her faith with me, But proved a woman as all other be. So bitter is their sweet that true content Unhappy men in them may never find: Ah! but without them none. Both must consent, Else uncouth are the joys of either kind. Let us then praise their good, forget their ill! Men must be men, and women women still. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOVE'S RESURRECTION DAY by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON TO A BIRCH TREE by KENNETH SLADE ALLING DUSK; TO MADEMOISELLE MARIE LAURENCIN by GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE THE CRUSADERS' MARCH by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN EPIGAEA ASLEEP by WILLIAM WHITMAN BAILEY THE WANDERER: 5. IN HOLLAND: JACQUELINE, COUNTESS OF HOLLAND by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON THE GALLANT WEAVER by ROBERT BURNS FAMILIAR EPISTLES ON A SERMON, 'OFFICE & OPERATIONS OF HOLY SPIRIT': 1 by JOHN BYROM |