1 Love! in what poison is thy dart
  Dipp’d, when it makes a bleeding heart? 
  None know but they who feel the smart.

2 It is not thou, but we are blind,
  And our corporeal eyes (we find)
  Dazzle the optics of our mind.

3 Love to our citadel resorts;
  Through those deceitful sally-ports,
  Our sentinels betrays our forts.

4 What subtle witchcraft man constrains,
  To change his pleasure into pains,
  And all his freedom into chains?

5 May not a prison, or a grave,
  Like wedlock, honour’s title have
  That word makes freeborn man a slave.

6 How happy he that loves not, lives! 
  Him neither hope nor fear deceives,
  To Fortune who no hostage gives.

7 How unconcern’d in things to come! 
  If here uneasy, finds at Rome,
  At Paris, or Madrid, his home.

8 Secure from low and private ends,
  His life, his zeal, his wealth attends
  His prince, his country, and his friends.

9 Danger and honour are his joy;
  But a fond wife, or wanton boy,
  May all those gen’rous thoughts destroy.

10 Then he lays by the public care;
   Thinks of providing for an heir;
   Learns how to get, and how to spare.

11 Nor fire, nor foe, nor fate, nor night,
   The Trojan hero did affright,
   Who bravely twice renew’d the fight.

12 Though still his foes in number grew,
   Thicker their darts and arrows flew,
   Yet, left alone, no fear he knew.

13 But Death in all her forms appears,
   From every thing he sees and hears,
   For whom he leads, and whom he bears.[1]

14 Love, making all things else his foes,
   Like a fierce torrent, overflows
   Whatever doth his course oppose.

15 This was the cause, the poets sung,
   Thy mother from the sea was sprung;
   But they were mad to make thee young.

16 Her father, not her son, art thou: 
   From our desires our actions grow;
   And from the cause th’effect must flow.

17 Love is as old as place or time;
   ’Twas he the fatal tree did climb,
   Grandsire of father Adam’s crime.

18 Well may’st thou keep this world in awe;
   Religion, wisdom, honour, law,
   The tyrant in his triumph draw.

19 ’Tis he commands the powers above;
   Phoebus resigns his darts, and Jove
   His thunder to the god of Love.

20 To him doth his feign’d mother yield;
   Nor Mars (her champion’s) flaming shield
   Guards him, when Cupid takes the field.

21 He clips Hope’s wings, whose airy bliss
   Much higher than fruition is,
   But less than nothing if it miss.

22 When matches Love alone projects,
   The cause transcending the effects,
   That wild fire’s quench’d in cold neglects;

23 Whilst those conjunctions prove the best,
   Where Love’s of blindness dispossess’d
   By perspectives of interest.