Love and Marriage

Eque brevi verbo ferre perenne malum.
SECUNDUS, eleg. vii.

Still the question I must parry,
Still a wayward truant prove:
Where I love, I must not marry;
Where I marry, can not love.

Were she fairest of creation,
With the least presuming mind;
Learned without affectation;
Not deceitful, yet refined;

Wise enough, but never rigid;
Gay, but not too lightly free;
Chaste as snow, and yet not frigid:
Fond, yet satisfied with me:

Were she all this ten times over,
All that heaven to earth allows.
I should be too much her lover
Ever to become her spouse.

Love will never bear enslaving;
Summer garments suit him best;
Bliss itself is not worth having,
If we’re by compulsion blest.