Classic Poem

Alexander Neville's Answer to the same

It is not cursed Cupid's dart,
nor Venus' cankered spite,
It is not vengeance of the gods
that wretched hearts doth smite
With restless rage of careful love:
no, no, thy force alone,
Affection fond, doth stir these flames.
Thou causest us to moan
And wail, and curse our wretched states.
Our thrice unhappy plights,
Our sighs, and powdered sobs with tears,
our grievous groaning sprites,
Thy hateful malice doth procure,
O fancy, flaming fiend
Of hell. For thou in outward shape
and colour of a friend,
Dost by thy snares and slimed hooks
entrap the wounded hearts,
From whence these hell-like torments spring,
and ever-grieving smarts.
Whence gripe of mind, with changed cheer,
whence face besmeared with tears,
Whence thousand mischiefs more, wherewith
such misers' lives outwears.
Our gazing eyes on beauty's bait
do work our endless bane;
Our eyes, I say, do work our woe,
our eyes procure our pain.
These are the traps to vexed minds,
here gins and snares do lie,
Here fire and flames by fancy framed
in breast do broil and fry.
O Googe, the bait soon spied is,
soon viewed their wanton looks,
Whereon to feed, and yet to shun
the privy lurking hooks,
There pain, there toil, there labour is,
there, there lies endless strife.
O happy, then, that man account,
whose well directed life
Can fly those ills which fancy stirs,
and live from bondage free:
A Phoenix right on th'earth (no doubt),
a bird full rare to see.