Song: If you refuse me once, and think again
Song: If you refuse me once, and think again
Original Text
Sir John Suckling, Fragmenta Aurea (London: H. Moseley, 1646). Wing S6127. B-11 2046 Fisher Rare Book Library
1If you refuse me once, and think again,
2 I will complain.
3You are deceiv'd, love is no work of art,
4 It must be got and born,
5 Not made and worn,
6By every one that hath a heart.
7Or do you think they more than once can die,
8 Whom you deny?
9Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day,
10 Like the old poets feign
11 And tell the pain
12They met, but in the common way?
13Or do you think 't too soon to yield,
14 And quit the field?
15Nor is that right, they yield that first entreat;
16 Once one may crave for love,
17 But more would prove
18This heart too little, that too great.
19Oh that I were all soul, that I might prove
20 For you as fit a love
21As you are for an angel; for I know,
22None but pure spirits are fit loves for you.
23You are all ethereal; there's in you no dross,
24 Nor any part that's gross.
25Your coarsest part is like a curious lawn,
26The vestal relics for a covering drawn.
27Your other parts, part of the purest fire
28 That e'er Heav'n did inspire,
29Makes every thought that is refin'd by it
30A quintessence of goodness and of wit.
31Thus have your raptures reach'd to that degree
32 In love's philosophy,
33That you can figure to yourself a fire
34Void of all heat, a love without desire.
35Nor in divinity do you go less;
36 You think, and you profess,
37That souls may have a plenitude of joy,
38Although their bodies meet not to employ.
39But I must needs confess, I do not find
40 The motions of my mind
41So purified as yet, but at the best
42My body claims in them an interest.
43I hold that perfect joy makes all our parts
44 As joyful as our hearts.
45Our senses tell us, if we please not them,
46Our love is but a dotage or a dream.
47How shall we then agree? you may descend,
48 But will not, to my end.
49I fain would tune my fancy to your key,
50But cannot reach to that obstructed way.
51There rests but this, that whilst we sorrow here,
52 Our bodies may draw near;
53And, when no more their joys they can extend,
54Then let our souls begin where they did end.
Publication Start Year
1646
RPO poem Editors
N. J. Endicott
RPO Edition
3RP.1.332; RPO 1994-2000.
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