Elegy VII: Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee…

Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love,

And in that sophistry, oh, thou dost prove

Too subtle: Fool, thou didst not understand

The mystic language of the eye nor hand:

Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air

Of sighs, and say, this lies, this sounds despair:

Nor by the’eye’s water call a malady

Desperately hot, or changing feverously.

I had not taught thee then, the alphabet

Of flowers, how they devicefully being set

And bound up, might with speechless secrecy

Deliver errands mutely, and mutually.

Remember since all thy words used to be

To every suitor, “I, ’if my friends agree”;

Since, household charms, thy husband’s name to teach,

Were all the love-tricks, that thy wit could reach;

And since, an hour’s discourse could scarce have made

One answer in thee, and that ill arrayed

In broken proverbs, and torn sentences.

Thou art not by so many duties his,

That from the’world’s common having severed thee,

Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see,

As mine: who have with amorous delicacies

Refined thee’into a blissful paradise.

Thy graces and good words my creatures be;

I planted knowledge and life’s tree in thee,

Which oh, shall strangers taste? Must I alas

Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass?

Chafe wax for others’ seals? break a colt’s force

And leave him then, being made a ready horse?