Be she showing in her dress
Like a civil wilderness;
That the curious may detect
Order in a sweet neglect;
Be she rolling in her eye,
Tempting all the passers-by;
And each ringlet of her hair
An enchantment, or a snare
For to catch the lookers-on;
But herself held fast by none.
Let her Lucrece all day be,
Thais in the night to me.
Be she such as neither will
Famish me nor overfill.

Herrick.

195

Love who will, for I'll love none,
There's fools enough beside me:
Yet if each woman have not one,
Come to me where I hide me,
And if she can the place attain,
For once I'll be her fool again.

It is an easy place to find,

And women sure should know it:
Yet thither serves not every wind,
Nor
many men can show it:
It is the storehouse, where doth lie
All women's truth and constancy

If the journey be so long,

No woman will adventer;

But dreading her weak vessel's wrong,
The voyage will not enter:
Then may she sigh and lie alone,
In love with all, yet loved of none.

Browne.

196

On Love

Love bade me ask a gift,
And I no more did move

But this, that I might shift

Still with my clothes love:

That favour granted was:

my

Since which, though I love many,

Yet it so comes to pass

That long I love not any.

Herrick.

197

The Indifferent

I can love both fair and brown;

Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want

betrays;

Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and

plays;

Her whom the country formed, and whom the town;

Her who believes, and her who tries;

Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,

And her who is dry cork, and never cries.

I can love her, and her, and you, and you;
I can love any, so she be not true.

Will no other vice content you?

Will it not serve your turn to do

mothers?

as did your

Or have you all old vices spent and now would find

out others?

Or doth a fear that men are true torment you?
O we are not, be not you so;

Let me and do you twenty know;
you-twenty

Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travel thorough you,
Grow fixed subject, because you are true?

your

Venus heard me sigh this song;

And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and returned ere long,
And said, "Alas! some two or three

Poor heretics in love there be,

Which think to stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, 'Since

you

will be true,

You shall be true to them who're false to you.'

198

Donne.

Community

Good we must love, and must hate ill,

For ill is ill, and good good still;
But there are things indifferent,

Which we may neither hate, nor love,
But one, and then another prove,
As we shall find our fancy bent.

If then at first wise Nature had
Made women either good or bad,

Then some we might hate, and some choose; But since she did them so create,

That we may

neither love, nor hate,

Only this rests, all all may use.

If they were good, it would be seen;
Good is as visible as green,

And to all eyes itself betrays.
If they were bad, they could not last;
Bad doth itself and others waste;

So they deserve nor blame, nor praise.

But they are ours as fruits are ours;
He that but tastes, he that devours,

And he that leaves all, doth as well;

Changed loves are but changed sorts of meat;
And when he hath the kernel eat,

Who doth not fling away the shell?

Donne.

199

To Virgins

Hear, ye virgins, and I'll teach
What the times of old did preach

Rosamond was in a bower

Kept, as Danae in a tower:

But yet love, who subtle is,
Crept to that, and came to this.
Be locked like to these,
Or the rich Hesperides,

ye

up

Or those babies in your eyes,
In their crystal nunneries;
Notwithstanding love will win,
Or else force a passage in:
And as coy be as you can,
Gifts will get ye, or the man.

Herrick.

200

Upon Love, by Way of
Question and Answer

I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do?
Ans. Like and dislike ye.

I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do? Ans. Stroke ye to strike ye.

I bring

ye

love: Quest. What will love do? Ans. Love will befool

ye.

I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do? Ans. Heat ye to cool ye.

I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do? Ans. Love gifts will send ye.

I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do? Ans. Stock ye to spend ye.

I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do? Ans. Love will fulfil ye.

I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do?

Ans. Kiss

ye to
to kill ye.

Herrick.