Loves Progress

Who ever loves, if he do not proposeThe right true end of love, he's one that goesTo sea for nothing but to make him sick:Love is a bear-whelp born, if we o're lickOur love, and force it new strange shapes to take,We erre, and of a lump a monster make.Were not a Calf a monster that were grownFace'd like a man, though better then his own?Perfection is in unitie: preferrOne woman first, and then one thing in her.I, when I value gold, may think uponThe ductilness, the application,The wholsomness, the ingenuitie,From rust, from soil, from fire ever free:But if I love it, 'tis because 'tis madeBy our new nature (Use) the soul of trade.All these in women we might think upon(If women had them) and yet love but one.Can men more injure women then to sayThey love them for that, by which they're not they?Makes virtue woman? must I cool my bloudTill I both be, and find one wise and good?May barren Angels love so. But if weMake love to woman; virtue is not she:As beauty'is not nor wealth: He that strayes thusFrom her to hers, is more adulterous,Then if he took her maid. Search every spheareAnd firmament, our Cupid is not there:He's an infernal god and under ground,With Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound:Men to such Gods, their sacrificing ColesDid not in Altars lay, but pits and holes.Although we see Celestial bodies moveAbove the earth, the earth we Till and love:So we her ayres contemplate, words and heart,And virtues; but we love the Centrique part.Nor is the soul more worthy, or more fitFor love, then this, as infinite as it.But in attaining this desired placeHow much they erre; that set out at the face?The hair a Forest is of Ambushes,Of springes, snares, fetters and manacles:The brow becalms us when 'tis smooth and plain,And when 'tis wrinckled, shipwracks us again.Smooth, 'tis a Paradice, where we would haveImmortal stay, and wrinkled 'tis our grave.The Nose (like to the first Meridian) runsNot 'twixt an East and West, but 'twixt two suns;It leaves a Cheek, a rosie HemisphereOn either side, and then directs us whereUpon the Islands fortunate we fall,(Not faynte Canaries, but Ambrosiall)Her swelling lips; To which when wee are come,We anchor there, and think our selves at home,For they seem all: there Syrens songs, and thereWise Delphick Oracles do fill the ear;There in a Creek where chosen pearls do swell,The Remora, her cleaving tongue doth dwell.These, and the glorious Promontory, her ChinOre past; and the streight Hellespont betweeneThe Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,(Not of two Lovers, but two Loves the neasts)Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine eyeSome Island moles may scattered there descry;And Sailing towards her India, in that wayShall at her fair Atlantick Navell stay;Though thence the Current be thy Pilot made,Yet ere thou be where thou wouldst be embay'd,Thou shalt upon another Forest set,Where many Shipwrack, and no further get.When thou art there, consider what this chaceMispent by thy beginning at the face.Rather set out below; practice my Art,Some Symetry the foot hath with that partWhich thou dost seek, and is thy Map for thatLovely enough to stop, but not stay at:Least subject to disguise and change it is;Men say the Devil never can change his.It is the Emblem that hath figuredFirmness; 'tis the first part that comes to bed.Civilitie we see refin'd: the kissWhich at the face began, transplanted is,Since to the hand, since to the Imperial knee,Now at the Papal foot delights to be:If Kings think that the nearer way, and doRise from the foot, Lovers may do so too;For as free Spheres move faster far then canBirds, whom the air resists, so may that manWhich goes this empty and Ætherial way,Then if at beauties elements he stay.Rich Nature hath in women wisely madeTwo purses, and their mouths aversely laid:They then, which to the lower tribute owe,That way which that Exchequer looks, must go:He which doth not, his error is as great,As who by Clyster gave the Stomack meat.