LOVE in 's first infant days had's wardrobe full; Sometimes we found him courting in a Bull: Then, drest in snowy plumes, his long neck is Made pliable and fit to reach a kiss: When aptest for embraces, he became Either a winding snake, or curling flame: And cunningly a pressing kiss to gain, The Virgin's honour in a grape would stain: When he consulted lawns for privacies, The Shepherd, or his ram, was his disguise: But the blood raging to a rape, put on A Satyr, or a wilder Stallion; And for variety, in Thetis' court Did like a dolphin with the Sea-nymph sport: But since the sad barbarian yoke hath bow'd The Grecian neck, Love hath less change allow'd: Contracted lives in eyes; no flaming robes Wears, but are lent him in your crystal globes: Not worth a water'd garment, when he wears That element he steals it from my tears. A snake he is, alas! when folded in Your frowns, where too much sting guards the fair skin: A Shepherd unto cares, and only sips The blushing grape of your Nectarean lips: The Ram, Bull, Stallion, Satyrs only fight Love's battles now in my wild appetite. He is his Swan too suffers a restraint, Cygnaean only in my dying plaint. Since all his actions Love to morals turns, And faintly now in things less real burns, In such a weakness contraries destroy, And she his murd'ress is, who now is coy. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FACADE: 1. PERE AMELOT by EDITH SITWELL A DUTCH PROVERB by MATTHEW PRIOR THE BURIAL OF ROBERT BROWNING by KATHERINE HARRIS BRADLEY LINES ON REVISITING THE COUNTRY by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT THE BIRTH OF SONG by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES TO SHAKESPEARE by RICHARD EDWIN DAY |