“Ay me,” quoth Venus, “young, and so unkind!
What bare excuses mak’st thou to be gone! 188
I’ll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind
Shall cool the heat of this descending sun:
I’ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;
If they burn too, I’ll quench them with my tears. 192
“The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm,
And lo I lie between that sun and thee:
The heat I have from thence doth little harm,
Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me; 196
And were I not immortal, life were done,
Between this heavenly and earthly sun.
“Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?
Nay more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth: 200
Art thou a woman’s son and canst not feel
What ’tis to love, how want of love tormenteth?
O had thy mother borne so hard a mind,
She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind. 204
“What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this?
Or what great danger dwells upon my suit?
What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?
Speak, fair; but speak fair words, or else be mute: 208
Give me one kiss, I’ll give it thee again,
And one for int’rest, if thou wilt have twain.
“Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,
Well-painted idol, image dull and dead, 212
Statue contenting but the eye alone,
Thing like a man, but of no woman bred:
Thou art no man, though of a man’s complexion,
For men will kiss even by their own direction.” 216
This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,
And swelling passion doth provoke a pause;
Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;
Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause. 220
And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,
And now her sobs do her intendments break.
Sometimes she shakes her head, and then his hand,
Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground; 224
Sometimes her arms infold him like a band:
She would, he will not in her arms be bound;
And when from thence he struggles to be gone,
She locks her lily fingers one in one. 228
“Fondling,” she saith, “since I have hemm’d thee here
Within the circuit of this ivory pale,
I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale: 232
Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.
“Within this limit is relief enough,
Sweet bottom grass and high delightful plain, 236
Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,
To shelter thee from tempest and from rain:
Then be my deer, since I am such a park, 239
No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.”
At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,
That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple;
Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,
He might be buried in a tomb so simple; 244
Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,
Why there love liv’d, and there he could not die.