Love's Alchemy

• Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I,
• Say, where his centric happiness doth lie.
• I have loved, and got, and told,
• But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
• I should not find that hidden mystery.
• O ! 'tis imposture all;
• And as no chemic yet th' elixir got,
• But glorifies his pregnant pot,
• If by the way to him befall
• Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,
• So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,
• But get a winter-seeming summer's night.
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• Our ease, our thrift, our honour, and our day,
• Shall we for this vain bubble's shadow pay?
• Ends love in this, that my man
• Can be as happy as I can, if he can
• Endure the short scorn of a bridegroom's play?
• That loving wretch that swears,
• 'Tis not the bodies marry, but the minds,
• Which he in her angelic finds,
• Would swear as justly, that he hears,
• In that day's rude hoarse minstrelsy, the spheres.
• Hope not for mind in women; at their best,
• Sweetness and wit they are, but mummy, possess'd.