Venus and Adonis

With kissing him I should have kill'd him first

Hateful divorce of love,'—thus chides she Death,—
'Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,
Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?

How love makes young men thrall and old men dote;
How love is wise in folly foolish-witty

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun; 800
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done.
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.

Call it not, love, for Love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name

No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,
But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.
'What have you urg'd that I cannot reprove?
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger; 790
I hate not love, but your device in love
That lends embracements unto every stranger

For by this black-fac'd night, desire's foul nurse,
Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.
'If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,
And every tongue more moving than your own, 776
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's songs,
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;
For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,
And will not let a false sound enter there; 780
'Lest the deceiving harmony should run
Into the quiet closure of my breast;
And then my little heart were quite undone,
In his bedchamber to be barr'd of rest.

The kiss I gave you is bestow'd in vain,
And all in vain you strive against the stream

But gold that's put to use more gold begets.'

And now 'tis dark, and going I shall fall.'
'In night,' quoth she, 'desire sees best of all.'