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 rites 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 would have its end before its time. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN THE STREETS by LOUIS UNTERMEYER ECHOES: 7 by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS AGO by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION by WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY THE INNER VISION by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH A BALLADE OF LAWN TENNIS by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |