FAREWELL TO LOVE

                WHILST yet to prove,
I thought there was some Deitie in love
    So did I reverence, and gave
Worship; as Atheists at their dying houre
Call, what they cannot name, an unknowne power,
    As ignorantly did I crave:
                    Thus when
Things not yet knowne are coveted by men,
    Our desires give them fashion, and so
As they waxe lesser, fall, as they sise, grow.

                But, from late faire
His highnesse sitting in a golden Chaire,
    Is not lesse cared for after three dayes
By children, than the thing which lovers so
Blindly admire, and with such worship wooe;
    Being had, enjoying it decayes:
                        And thence,
What before pleas'd them all, takes but one sense,
And that so lamely, as it leaves behinde
A kinde of sorrowing dulnesse to the minde.

                Ah cannot wee,
As well as Cocks and Lyons jocund be,
    After such pleasures? Unlesse wise
Nature decreed (since each such Act, they say,
Diminisheth the length of life a day)
    This, as shee would man should despise
                    The sport,
Because that other curse of being short,
    And onely for a minute made to be
Eager desire, to raise posterity.

                Since so, my minde
Shall not desire what no man else can finde,
    I'll no more dote and runne
To pursue things which had indammag'd me.
And when I come where moving beauties be,
    As men doe when the summers Sunne
                    Growes great,
Though I admire their greatnesse, shun their heat;
    Each place can afford shadowes. If all faile,
'Tis but applying worme-seed to the Taile.