No More Learning

_Art quickens nature; care will make a face;
Neglected beauty perisheth apace. _


235. UPON HIMSELF.

Mop-eyed I am, as some have said,
Because I've lived so long a maid:
But grant that I should wedded be,
Should I a jot the better see?
No, I should think that marriage might,
Rather than mend, put out the light.

_Mop-eyed_, shortsighted.


236. UPON A PHYSICIAN.

Thou cam'st to cure me, doctor, of my cold,
And caught'st thyself the more by twenty fold:
Prithee go home; and for thy credit be
First cured thyself, then come and cure me.


238. TO THE ROSE. A SONG.

Go, happy rose, and interwove
With other flowers, bind my love.
Tell her, too, she must not be
Longer flowing, longer free,
That so oft has fetter'd me.

Say, if she's fretful, I have bands
Of pearl and gold to bind her hands.
Tell her, if she struggle still,
I have myrtle rods (at will)
For to tame, though not to kill.

Take thou my blessing, thus, and go
And tell her this, but do not so,
Lest a handsome anger fly,
Like a lightning, from her eye,
And burn thee up as well as I.


240. TO HIS BOOK.

Thou art a plant sprung up to wither never,
But like a laurel to grow green for ever.


241. UPON A PAINTED GENTLEWOMAN.

Men say y'are fair, and fair ye are, 'tis true;
But, hark! we praise the painter now, not you.


243. DRAW-GLOVES.

At draw-gloves we'll play,
And prithee let's lay
A wager, and let it be this:
Who first to the sum
Of twenty shall come,
Shall have for his winning a kiss.

_Draw-gloves_, a game of talking by the fingers.


244. TO MUSIC, TO BECALM A SWEET-SICK YOUTH.

Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere,
On this sick youth work your enchantments here:
Bind up his senses with your numbers so
As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe.