Venus and Adonis (Modern)
Peer Reviewed
¶"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.
¶"Look, the world's comforter with weary gait
530His day's hot task hath ended in the west;
¶The owl, night's herald, shrieks, 'tis very late;
¶The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,
¶_And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven's light,
¶_Do summon us to part and bid good night.
