Suckling. Song. "If you refuse me once and think again."

SONG.
Sir John Suckling

IF you refuse me once and think again,
I will complain.
You are deceiv'd, love is no work of art ;
It must be got and born,
Not made and worn,
By every one that hath a heart.

Or do you think they more than once can die,
Whom you deny ;
Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day,
Like the old poets feign
And tell the pain
They met, but in the common way ?

Or do you think 't too soon to yield,
And quit the field ?
Nor is that right ; they yield that first entreat :
Once one may crave for love,
But more would prove
This heart too little, that too great.

O that I were all soul, that I might prove
For you as fit a love
As you are for an angel ; for, I know,
None but pure spirits are fit loves for you.

You are all ethereal ; there 's in you no dross,
Nor any part that's gross.
Your coarsest part is like a curious lawn,
The vestal relics for a covering drawn.

Your other parts, part of the purest fire
That e'er Heaven did inspire,
Makes every thought that is refined by it,
A quintessence of goodness and of wit.

Thus have your raptures reach'd to that degree
In Love's philosophy,
That you can figure to yourself a fire
Void of all heat, a love without desire.

Nor in Divinity do you go less :
You think, and you profess,
That souls may have a plenitude of joy,
Although their bodies meet not to employ.

But I must needs confess, I do not find
The motions of my mind
So purified as yet, but at the best
My body claims in them an interest.

I hold that perfect joy makes all our parts
As joyful as our hearts.
Our senses tell us, if we please not them,
Our love is but a dotage or a dream.

How shall we then agree? you may descend,
But will not, to my end.
I fain would tune my fancy to your key,
But cannot reach to that obstructed way.

There rests but this, that, whilst we sorrow here,
Our bodies may draw near :
And, when no more their joys they can extend,
Then let our souls begin where they did end.

Source:
Suckling, John. The Works of Sir John Suckling. A. Hamilton Thompson, ed.
London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1910. 53-55.

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