Love's Dialect :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lvst (The hot mother of unchast desires,
Blacke spotted feavers and destroying fires)
I must take breath to curse yee, for I see
My ruine will be perfected by thee,
Why do men call thee love, when as no hate
Retaine's a Plague, maks man more desperate:
Thou rob'st him of all honour, mak'st his name
Become the onely title of a shame;
Oh may thy fawning falsehood nere have rest
Within the confine's of a noble brest.
All the choice vertues, that I ere could boast
My soule enjoy'd, insatiate lust hath lost:
Religion bid me first farewell, for I
Behold no beauty in Divinity;
Then wisedome left the mansion of my minde
To follie's trust (who never was enclin'd
Vnto chast lawes) I did not wisedome misse,
Wealth can obtaine a lustfull Mistresse:
But soone as wisedome from my soule did slide,
Reason remov'd and bad me seeke a guide,
Which thus I did, my present fancy flyes
Vnto the daylight of my Mistresse eyes,
Which being darken'd by divine decree,
I lost my way, and was as blind as shee:
But when Religion, Wisedome, Reason went,
Faith left me (too) and with a firme consent
Her sister Hope did follow, both agree
To heaven to transport kind charity;
Love lost his labour in me, for unjust
I did convert his civill lawes to lust.

Honor declin'd, saying it is not right
Man should be servant to his appetite:
Manhood exild himselfe and would not owne
Me nor my acts, I was all Woman growne.
Who thinks I am no loser? who will say
Hee's not undone that hath no more to play?
Let no man then expose his life and fame
He must needs lose, the divells in the game;
He that buyes pleasure at so deare a price
Obtaine's an apple to lose Paradise.