113. Against Love.

Whene'er my heart love's warmth but entertains,
Oh frost! oh snow! oh hail! forbid the banes.
One drop now deads a spark, but if the same
Once gets a force, floods cannot quench the flame.
Rather than love, let me be ever lost,
Or let me 'gender with eternal frost.

94. To His Mistress.

Choose me your valentine,
Next let us marry--
Love to the death will pine
If we long tarry.

Promise, and keep your vows,
Or vow ye never--
Love's doctrine disallows
Troth-breakers ever.

You have broke promise twice,
Dear, to undo me,
If you prove faithless thrice
None then will woo ye.

346. A Hymn To Venus And Cupid.

Sea-born goddess, let me be
By thy son thus grac'd and thee;
That whene'er I woo, I find
Virgins coy but not unkind.
Let me when I kiss a maid
Taste her lips so overlaid
With love's syrup, that I may,
In your temple when I pray,
Kiss the altar and confess
There's in love no bitterness.

56. The Vision To Electra.

I dreamed we both were in a bed
Of roses, almost smothered:
The warmth and sweetness had me there
Made lovingly familiar,
But that I heard thy sweet breath say,
Faults done by night will blush by day.
I kissed thee, panting, and, I call
Night to the record! that was all.
But, ah! if empty dreams so please,
Love give me more such nights as these.

44. Love's Play At Push-Pin.

Love and myself, believe me, on a day
At childish push-pin, for our sport, did play;
I put, he pushed, and, heedless of my skin,
Love pricked my finger with a golden pin;
Since which it festers so that I can prove
'Twas but a trick to poison me with love:
Little the wound was, greater was the smart,
The finger bled, but burnt was all my heart.

Push-pin, a game in which pins are pushed with an endeavor to cross
them.

42. To Love.

I'm free from thee; and thou no more shalt hear
My puling pipe to beat against thine ear.
Farewell my shackles, though of pearl they be;
Such precious thraldom ne'er shall fetter me.
He loves his bonds who, when the first are broke,
Submits his neck unto a second yoke.

38. To His Mistress Objecting To Him Neither Toying Or Talking.

You say I love not, 'cause I do not play
Still with your curls, and kiss the time away.
You blame me too, because I can't devise
Some sport to please those babies in your eyes:
By love's religion, I must here confess it,
The most I love when I the least express it.
Small griefs find tongues: full casks are ever found
To give (if any, yet) but little sound.
Deep waters noiseless are; and this we know,
That chiding streams betray small depth below.
So, when love speechless is, she doth express

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