Love’s Diet

TO what a cumbersome unwieldiness

And burdenous corpulence my love had grown,

But that I did, to make it less,

And keep it in proportion,

Give it a diet, made it feed upon

That which love worst endures, discretion.

Above one sigh a day I allow’d him not,

Of which my fortune, and my faults had part;

And if sometimes by stealth he got

A she sigh from my mistress’ heart,

And thought to feast on that, I let him see

’Twas neither very sound, nor meant to me.

If he wrung from me a tear, I brined it so

With scorn or shame, that him it nourish’d not;

If he suck’d hers, I let him know

’Twas not a tear which he had got;

His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;

For eyes, which roll towards all, weep not, but sweat.

Whatever he would dictate I writ that,

But burnt her letters when she writ to me;

And if that favour made him fat,

I said, “If any title be

Convey’d by this, ah! what doth it avail,

To be the fortieth name in an entail?”

Thus I reclaim’d my buzzard love, to flie

At what, and when, and how, and where I choose.

Now negligent of sports I lie,

And now, as other falconers use,

I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep;

And the game kill’d, or lost, go talk or sleep.