A charm

poem

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If thou wouldst love, and nothing want,

Nor have mistrust thy shadow haunt;

If thou wouldst catch her by a look

Yet find thyself a lacking hook,

I’ll show you plain a mystery:

For all these locks I have a key.

I’ll teach thee to put on such airs

– A very answer to her prayers –

Thy speech shall be a honey dew

And thou shalt tell her nothing true.

Her sighs, her tears, thou be sole cause;

Her heart be prey to goddess jaws,

While thou, a king in all thy state

Hast laid the trap, with love the bait.

But she will leave you, pretty one,

For when you have her soul undone

She will not love you for your words,

Which, naked, flee like southern birds.

Though you do plead, yet she will go

Another such like thou shalt know –

And thou, bereft of tricks and ways

Shall sit in shadow all thy days.