— Sweet ladies, you with beauty, you with wit; Dowered of all favours and all blessed things Whereat the ruddy torch of Love is lit; Wherefore this vain and outworn strife renew, Which stays the tide no more than eddy-rings?  Who is for love must be for you.

     VIII

— The manners of the market, honest sirs, ’Tis hard to quit when you behold the wares.  You flatter us, or perchance our milliners You flatter; so this vain and outworn She May still be the charmed snake to your soft airs!  A higher lord than Love claim we.

     IX

— One day, dear lady, missing the broad track, I came on a wood’s border, by a mead, Where golden May ran up to moted black:  And there I saw Queen Beauty hold review, With Love before her throne in act to plead.  Take him for me, take her for you.

     X

— Ingenious gentleman, the tale is known.  Love pleaded sweetly:  Beauty would not melt:  She would not melt:  he turned in wrath:  her throne The shadow of his back froze witheringly, And sobbing at his feet Queen Beauty knelt.  O not such slaves of Love are we!

     XI

— Love, lady, like the star above that lance Of radiance flung by sunset on ridged cloud, Sad as the last line of a brave romance! — Young Love hung dim, yet quivering round him threw Beams of fresh fire, while Beauty waned and bowed.  Scorn Love, and dread the doom for you.

     XII

— Called she not for her mirror, sir?  Forth ran Her women:  I am lost, she cried, when lo, Love in the form of an admiring man Once more in adoration bent the knee, And brought the faded Pagan to full blow:  For which her throne she gave:  not we!

     XIII

— My version, madam, runs not to that end.  A certain madness of an hour half past, Caught her like fever; her just lord no friend She fancied; aimed beyond beauty, and thence grew The prim acerbity, sweet Love’s outcast.  Great heaven ward off that stroke from you!

     XIV

— Your prayer to heaven, good sir, is generous:  How generous likewise that you do not name Offended nature!  She from all of us Couched idle underneath our showering tree, May quite withhold her most destructive flame; And then what woeful women we!

     XV

— Quite, could not be, fair lady; yet your youth May run to drought in visionary schemes:  And a late waking to perceive the truth, When day falls shrouding her supreme adieu, Shows darker wastes than unaccomplished dreams:  And that may be in store for you.

     XVI

— O sir, the truth, the truth! is’t in the skies, Or in the grass, or in this heart of ours?  But O the truth, the truth! the many eyes That look on it! the diverse things they see, According to their thirst for fruit or flowers!  Pass on:  it is the truth seek we.

     XVII