The Primrose, Being At Montgomery Castle
Upon The Hill, On Which It Is Situate
- Upon this Primrose hill,
- Where, if Heav’n would distil
- A shower of rain, each several drop might go
- To his own primrose, and grow manna so;
- And where their form and their infinity
- Make a terrestrial Galaxy,
- As the small stars do in the sky:
- I walk to find a true Love; and I see
- That ’tis not a mere woman that is she,
- But must or more or less than woman be.
-
- Yet know I not which flower
- I wish; a six, or four;
- For should my true-Love less than woman be
- She were scarce any thing; and then, should she
- Be more than woman she would get above
- All thought of sex, and think to move
- My heart to study her, and not to love;
- Both these were monsters; since there must reside
- Falsehood in woman, I could more abide
- She were by art than Nature falsified.
-
- Live primrose then, and thrive
- With thy true number five;
- And woman, whom this flower doth represent,
- With this mysterious number be content;
- Ten is the farthest number; if half ten
- Belong unto each woman, then
- Each woman may take half us men;
- Or if this will not serve their turn, since all
- Numbers are odd or even, and they fall
- First into this, five, woman may take us all.
From: Songs and Sonnets, 1633.
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