Swifter than aught 'neath the sun the car of Simonides moved him.
Two things he could not out-run — Death and a Woman who loved him.

I

When the South sang like a nightingale
Above a bower in May,
The training of Love's vine of flame
Was writ in laws, for lord and dame
To say their yea and nay.

II

When the South sang like a nightingale
Across the flowering night,
And lord and dame held gentle sport,
There came a young princess to Court,

A BALLAD OF OLD LAWS OF LOVE

IV

You must love the light so well
That no darkness will seem fell.
Love it so you could accost
Fellowly a livid ghost.
Whish! the phantom wisps away,
Owns him smoke to cocks of day.
In your breast the light must burn
Fed of you, like corn in quern
Ever plumping while the wheel
Speeds the mill and drains the meal.
Light to light sees little strange,
Only features heavenly new;
Then you touch the nerve of Change,
Then of Earth you have the clue;
Then her two-sexed meanings melt

IV.

   Question . B Y what power was love confined
  To one object? Who can bind,
Or fix a limit to the free-born mind?

   Answer . Nature: for as bodies may
  Move at once but in one way,
So nor can minds to more than one love stray.

   Question . Yet I feel a double smart,
  Love's twinn'd flame, his forked dart.
Answer . Then hath wild lust, not love, possess'd thy heart.

   Question . Whence springs love? Ans. From beauty. Question . Why
  Should th' effect not multiply

III.

Stop the chafed boar, or play
 With the lion's paw, yet fear
 From the lover's side to tear
The idol of his soul away.

Though love enter by the sight
 To the heart, it doth not fly
 From the mind, when from the eye
The fair objects take their flight.

But since want provokes desire,
 When we lose what we before
 Have enjoy'd, as we want more,
So is love more set on fire.

Love doth with an hungry eye
 Glut on beauty; and you may
 Safer snatch the tiger's prey,
Than his vital food deny.

When Genius ended, all the lords rejoiced.
Never a better sermon, so they said,
Had been pronounced to them; nor since their birth
Had they a fuller pardon e'er received;
Nor ever such a just anathema
Against all men who might that pardon scorn
Had they e'er heard. They all at once adhered
Unto that creed and cried, " Fiat! Amen! "
Things being so appointed, they would brook
No more delay. Each one who had paid heed
To that sweet sermon loved its text so well
That word for word he locked it in his heart.

" ELOQUENT Genius, now I bid you seek
The host of barons of the God of Love,
Who, I am certain, is so fond of me,
So frank and debonair is he of heart,
That much he strives to serve me, and is drawn,
More than a steel to magnet, to my work.
My greetings give to him and my good friend
Dame Venus, and to all the barony
Except False Seeming, who associates
With hypocrites most dangerous and vain
And felons whom the Scriptures designate
As pseudo-prophets. Of Forced Abstinence
I've much suspicion that she's also proud

Venus her meinie summoned, then gave word
Her chariot to prepare; for in the mud
She would not go afoot. Her car was bright,
Rolling on four gold wheels begemmed with pearls.
In place of collared horses, six fair doves
She chose from out her dovecots for the shafts.
All things are ready, so she mounts her car
And starts to wage her war with Chastity.
The birds do not cavort, but beat their wings
And then are on their way; the air divides
Before them as they cleave it in their flight.
Betimes they come upon the battlefield.

Wise messengers departed from the host
And journeyed till they came to Venus' home,
Where with great honor they were well received.
Within a wooded plain is Cythera,
A mount so high that ne'er an arbalest,
However strong and competent to shoot,
Could send a shaft or arrow to its height.
Venus, who inspires all womankind,
Her principal pavilion perches there.
I'd bore you if I should describe it all,
And so I'll let it go; I would be brief.
Dame Venus had descended to the plain
To hunt. Her dearest friend attended her —