Venus and Adonis (Modern)
Peer Reviewed
¶"Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,
¶Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white;
¶But when his glutton eye so full hath fed,
400His other agents aim at like delight?
¶_Who is so faint that dares not be so bold
¶_To touch the fire, the weather being cold?
¶"Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy;
¶And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,
405To take advantage on presented joy.
¶Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.
¶_O, learn to love; the lesson is but plain,
¶_And once made perfect, never lost again."
¶"I know not love," quoth he, "nor will not know it,
410Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it.
¶'Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it.
¶My love to love is love but to disgrace it;
¶_For I have heard it is a life in death,
¶_That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.
