The Works of Sir John Suckling in prose and verse/Proffered Love Rejected
PROFFERED LOVE REJECTED
It is not four years ago,
I offered forty crowns
To lie with her a night or so:
She answer'd me in frowns.
Not two years since, she meeting me5
Did whisper in my ear,
That she would at my service be,
If I contented were.
I told her I was cold as snow,
And had no great desire;10
But should be well content to go
To twenty, but no higher.
Some three months since or thereabout,
She, that so coy had been,
Bethought herself and found me out,15
And was content to sin.
I smil'd at that, and told her I
Did think it something late,
And that I'd not repentance buy
At above half the rate.20
This present morning early she
Forsooth came to my bed,
And gratis there she offered me
Her high-priz'd maidenhead.
I told her that I thought it then25
Far dearer than I did,
When I at first the forty crowns
For one night's lodging bid.