Venus and Adonis (Modern)
Peer Reviewed
¶"Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,
¶What bargains may I make still to be sealing?
¶To sell myself I can be well contented,
¶So thou wilt buy and pay and use good dealing,
515_Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips,
¶_Set thy seal manual on my wax-red lips.
¶"A thousand kisses buys my heart from me,
¶And pay them at thy leisure, one by one.
¶What is ten hundred touches unto thee?
520Are they not quickly told and quickly gone?
¶_Say for non-payment that the debt should double,
¶_Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?"
¶"Fair queen," quoth he, "if any love you owe me,
¶Measure my strangeness with my unripe years.
525Before I know myself, seek not to know me.
¶No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears.
¶_The mellow plum doth fall; the green sticks fast,
¶_Or, being early plucked, is sour to taste.
