Sir John Suckling: Verses about Passion

I will not love one minute more, I swear!
No, not a minute! Not a sigh or tear
Thou gett'st from me, or one kind look again,
Though thou shouldst court me to 't, and wouldst begin.
I will not think of thee but as men do
Of debts and sins; and then I'll curse thee too.
For thy sake woman shall be now to me
Less welcome than at midnight ghosts shall be.
I'll hate so perfectly that it shall be
Treason to love that man that loves a she.
Nay, I will hate the very good, I swear,
That's in thy sex, because it doth lie there, -
Their very virtue, grace, discourse, and wit,
And all for thee! What, wilt thou love me yet?

There never yet was honest man
That ever drove the trade of love;
It is impossible, nor can
Integrity our ends promove:
For Kings and Lovers are alike in this
That their chief art in reigne dissembling is.
Here we are lov'd, and there we love,
Good nature now and passion strive
Which of the two should be above,
And laws unto the other give.
So we false fire with art sometimes discover,
And the true fire with the same art do cover.
What Rack can Fancy find so high?
Here we must Court, and here ingage,
Though in the other place we die.
Oh! ‘tis torture all, and cozenage;
And which the harder is I cannot tell,
To hide true love, or make false love look well.
Since it is thus, God of desire,
Give me my honesty again,
And take thy brands back, and thy fire;
I'me weary of the State I'me in:
Since (if the very best should now befal)
Loves Triumph, must be Honours Funeral.

If you refuse me once, and think again,
I will complain.
You are deceiv'd, love is no work of art,
It must be got and born,
Not made and worn,
By every one that hath a heart.

Or do you think they more than once can die,
Whom you deny?
Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day,
Like the old poets feign
And tell the pain
They met, but in the common way?

Or do you think 't too soon to yield,
And quit the field?
Nor is that right, they yield that first entreat;
Once one may crave for love,
But more would prove
This heart too little, that too great.

Oh that I were all soul, that I might prove
For you as fit a love
As you are for an angel; for I know,
None but pure spirits are fit loves for you.

You are all ethereal; there's in you no dross,
Nor any part that's gross.
Your coarsest part is like a curious lawn,
The vestal relics for a covering drawn.

Your other parts, part of the purest fire
That e'er Heav'n did inspire,
Makes every thought that is refin'd by it
A quintessence of goodness and of wit.

Thus have your raptures reach'd to that degree
In love's philosophy,
That you can figure to yourself a fire
Void of all heat, a love without desire.

Nor in divinity do you go less;
You think, and you profess,
That souls may have a plenitude of joy,
Although their bodies meet not to employ.

But I must needs confess, I do not find
The motions of my mind
So purified as yet, but at the best
My body claims in them an interest.

I hold that perfect joy makes all our parts
As joyful as our hearts.
Our senses tell us, if we please not them,
Our love is but a dotage or a dream.

How shall we then agree? you may descend,
But will not, to my end.
I fain would tune my fancy to your key,
But cannot reach to that obstructed way.

There rests but this, that whilst we sorrow here,
Our bodies may draw near;
And, when no more their joys they can extend,
Then let our souls begin where they did end.