Love’s Deity
- I long to talk with some old lover's ghost,
- Who died before the God of Love was born:
- I cannot think that he, who then loved most,
- Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
- But since this god produced a destiny,
- And that vice-nature, Custom, lets it be,
- I must love her that loves not me.
-
- Sure, they which made him god meant not so much,
- Nor he in his young godhead practised it;
- But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
- His office was indulgently to fit
- Actives to passives. Correspondency
- Only his subject was; it cannot be
- Love, till I love her that loves me.
-
- But every modern god will now extend
- His vast prerogative as far as Jove.
- To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
- All is the purlieu of the God of Love.
- Oh were we wakened by this tyranny
- To ungod this child again, it could not be
- I should love her who loves not me.
-
- Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I
- As though I felt the worst that love could do?
- Love might make me leave loving, or might try
- A deeper plague, to make her love me too,
- Which, since she loves before, I'm loth to see;
- Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,
- If she whom I love should love me.
From: Songs and Sonnets, 1633.
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