O cruel Love, how fierce the fire
That burns my fluttering heart;
Burn not too often, lest desire
A runaway depart.

Love plagues me with a double curse —
A wanton heart, an empty purse;
If from his fires I could fly,
I would not heed my poverty.

Joan is so quick, she earns a triple fee.
Two lovers aren't enough, a third has she;
For she has means to satisfy all three.

I hear the world exclaim, How small your wit!
Small too is my reward; — and so we're quit.

To climbe to hign must needes be nought,
the feare to fall doth breede disease:
To sinke to lowe brings carefull thought,
dispayring payne can neuer please.
The golden meane giues quiet rest,
Who liues betwene extremes doth best.

The mounting minde that hasts to climbe,
when Fortune whirles her wheele:
With double dolour is deprest,
if downe he chaunce to reele.

There was a silver age, an age of gold,
And then an age of brass, in days of old.
Like Nestor, Venus lived in all the three,
Gold, brass, and silver each with her agree.
The man of silver and of gold she loves,
The man of brass with all her heart approves,
And Zeus a hundred guineas had to pay
Before he fell on Danai that day.

Where now, Melissa, is the wondrous glow
Of thy proud beauty, thy disdainful brow,
Thy haughty charm, thy long and slender neck,
The clasps of gold that did thy ankles deck?
Thy hair is rough; rags hang about thy feet;
Such is the end that spendthrift wantons meet.

Whether thy hair is black as night,
Or radiant falls in strands of gold,
I breathe the same supreme delight,
An equal charm behold.
Yea, even when those locks are gray,
Young Love in them will nested stay.

Stags shall feed on gray sea-foam,
Dolphins on the mountains roam;
I who once would sport with boys
Now in women find my joys;
Rouge and powder please the eye
That once adored simplicity;
Bats and balls are thrown away
And at shuttlecock I play.