Elegy VII
- Nature 's lay idiot, I taught thee to love,
- And in that sophistry, Oh, thou dost prove
- Too subtle: Foole, thou didst not understand
- The mystic language of the eye nor hand:
- Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air
- Of sighs, and say, This lies, this sounds despair:
- Nor by th' eyes water call a malady
- Desperately hot, or changing feverously.
- I had not taught thee, then, the Alphabet
- Of flowers, how they devisefully being set
- And bound up might with speechless secrecy
- Deliver errands mutely, and mutually.
- Remember since all thy words used to be
- To every suitor, Ay, if my friends agree;
- Since, household charms, thy husband's name to teach,
- Were all the love tricks that thy wit could reach;
- And since, an hour's discourse could scarce have made
- One answer in thee, and that ill arrayed
- In broken proverbs and torn sentences.
- Thou art not by so many duties his,
- That from the world's Common having severed thee,
- Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see,
- As mine: who have with amorous delicacies
- Refined thee into a blisful Paradise.
- Thy graces and good words my creatures be;
- I planted knowledge and life's tree in thee,
- Which Oh, shall strangers taste? Must I alas
- Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass?
- Chaf wax for others' seals? break a colt's force
- And leave him then, being made a ready horse?
- --oOo-- -