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Not To Love.
By Robert Herrick
He that will not love must be
My scholar, and learn this of me:
There be in love as many fears
As the summer's corn has ears:
Sighs, and sobs, and sorrows more
Than the sand that makes the shore:
Freezing cold and fiery heats,
Fainting swoons and deadly sweats;
Now an ague, then a fever,
Both tormenting lovers ever.
Would'st thou know, besides all these,
How hard a woman 'tis to please,
How cross, how sullen, and how soon
She shifts and changes like the moon.
How false, how hollow she's in heart:
And how she is her own least part:
How high she's priz'd, and worth but small;
Little thou'lt love, or not at all.
Extra Info:
He that will not love, etc. Ovid, Rem. Am. 15, 16:--
Si quis male fert indignae regna puellae,
Ne pereat nostrae sentiat artis opem.
How she is her own least part. Ib. 344: Pars minima est ipsa puella sui, quoted by Bacon, Burton, Lyly, and Montaigne.
Printed in Witts Recreations, 1654, with the variants, 'freezing colds and fiery heats,' and 'and how she is in every part'.
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