At morn and even shades are longest;
At noon they are or short, or none: So men at weakest, they are strongest,
But grant us perfect, they're not known. Say are not women truly, then, Styled but the shadows of us men?
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care
Cause another's rosy are
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flowery meads in May,
If she think not well of me,
What care I how fair she be?
Shall my silly heart be pined
Cause I see a woman kind?
Or a well-disposed nature
Joined with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder, than
Turtle-dove or pelican,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how kind she be?
Shall a woman's virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or her well-deservings known
Make me quite forget my own?
Be she with that goodness blest
merit name may
If she be not such to me,
What care I how good she be?
Cause her fortune seems too high,
Shall I play the fool and die?
She that bears a noble mind,
If not outward helps she find,
Thinks what with them he would do
Who without them dares her woo;
And unless that mind I see,
What care I how great she be?
Great, or good, or kind, or fair,
I will ne'er the more despair;
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve;
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?
Shall I tell you whom I love?
Hearken then awhile to me;
And if such a woman move,
As I now shall versify,
Be assured 'tis she or none
That I love, and love alone.
Nature did her so much right,
As she scorns the help of Art;
In as many virtues dight
As e'er yet embraced a heart.
So much good so truly tried,
Some for less were deified.
Wit she hath without desire
To make known how much she hath;
And her anger flames no higher
Than may fitly sweeten wrath.
Full of pity as may be,
Though perhaps not so to me.
Reason masters every sense,
And her virtues grace her birth:
Lovely as all excellence,
Modest in her most of mirth:
Likelihood enough to prove,
Only worth could kindle love.
Such a one as I have sung;
Be she brown, or fair, or so,
That she be but somewhat young;
Be assured, 'tis she, or none,
That I love, and love alone.
What Kind of Mistress He
Would Have
Be the mistress of choice
my
Clean in manners, clear in voice;
Be she witty, more than wise,
Pure enough, though not precise;
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.
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.
Love bade me ask a gift,
And I no more did move
But this, that I might shift
Still with my clothes my
That favour granted was:
Since which, though I love
Yet it so comes to pass
That long I love not any.
The Indifferent
I can love both fair and brown;
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and
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.
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