Tixall Poetry/The Forehead the First Assault
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The Forehead the First Assault.
Let fickle, wanton lovers seeke
Theyre garlands in a smiling cheeke;
My love aspires unto the crowne
That hovers ore a foreheads frowne.
They'r idle lookes that can bee led
Inchanted to a rosy bed;
My watchfull eyes will onely dwell
Where awfull frownes kepe sentinell.
The cheekes are humble dowry plaines,
Where vulger pleasure onely raignes;
The towring fronts majestick hight
Displays a mountaine of delight.
Each rurall Pan his nimph can spye
Trip ore a cheekes fayre Thesaly;
The Muses onely Sol alow
To clime Parnassus loftye brow.
The cheekes an earthly garden bed,
With lilys and with roses spreade;
The forehead is a spheare de vine,
Where plants not grow, but planits shine.
The torid zone may now be past,
With every saile, and every mast,
But thats a venterous vessel dares
Goe plow the ice o'th poler starres.
Leander-like, the calme I hate
Upon the smoothest cheekes to wate,
But love the furrowed Hellespont
Of my deare cruells swelling front.
The sinner his temtation seekes
I' th' earthy aples of the cheekes;
But thats a saintly paradise
That beares the aples of the eyes.
The cheeke, or age or death devowrs,
As soft and fading as its flowres;
The foreheads bloome no season culls,
But keepes its forme in buried sculls.
The foreheads in loves edifice
The faire engraved frontispeece,
Where nature gave in beautys face
The uper end and midle place.
Are they not natures enemyes,
Who steale it thence to cheekes or eyes?
Nor will the single forehead mone,
Because the cheekes are two for one;
Since beautys dread soveraignty
Can onely dwell in unetye.
The cheekes, the lips, the hands, the feete,
Outmatched alone, in couples meete.
Had not the forehead matchles bin,
We, Janus-like, still two had sene;
But nature made it one, because
She could not such another cause,
And wisely left it single yet,
Till she knows how to doble it:
Or, least so high a doble blisse
Should cause a doble presipice,
For murderd harts she did invent
A single toombe and monument.
So while the fickle lover seekes
Two pitfalls in two dimpled cheakes,
My constant hart shall dying crave
One forheads wrinkle for a grave.
Theyre garlands in a smiling cheeke;
My love aspires unto the crowne
That hovers ore a foreheads frowne.
They'r idle lookes that can bee led
Inchanted to a rosy bed;
My watchfull eyes will onely dwell
Where awfull frownes kepe sentinell.
The cheekes are humble dowry plaines,
Where vulger pleasure onely raignes;
The towring fronts majestick hight
Displays a mountaine of delight.
Each rurall Pan his nimph can spye
Trip ore a cheekes fayre Thesaly;
The Muses onely Sol alow
To clime Parnassus loftye brow.
The cheekes an earthly garden bed,
With lilys and with roses spreade;
The forehead is a spheare de vine,
Where plants not grow, but planits shine.
The torid zone may now be past,
With every saile, and every mast,
But thats a venterous vessel dares
Goe plow the ice o'th poler starres.
Leander-like, the calme I hate
Upon the smoothest cheekes to wate,
But love the furrowed Hellespont
Of my deare cruells swelling front.
The sinner his temtation seekes
I' th' earthy aples of the cheekes;
But thats a saintly paradise
That beares the aples of the eyes.
The cheeke, or age or death devowrs,
As soft and fading as its flowres;
The foreheads bloome no season culls,
But keepes its forme in buried sculls.
The foreheads in loves edifice
The faire engraved frontispeece,
Where nature gave in beautys face
The uper end and midle place.
Are they not natures enemyes,
Who steale it thence to cheekes or eyes?
Nor will the single forehead mone,
Because the cheekes are two for one;
Since beautys dread soveraignty
Can onely dwell in unetye.
The cheekes, the lips, the hands, the feete,
Outmatched alone, in couples meete.
Had not the forehead matchles bin,
We, Janus-like, still two had sene;
But nature made it one, because
She could not such another cause,
And wisely left it single yet,
Till she knows how to doble it:
Or, least so high a doble blisse
Should cause a doble presipice,
For murderd harts she did invent
A single toombe and monument.
So while the fickle lover seekes
Two pitfalls in two dimpled cheakes,
My constant hart shall dying crave
One forheads wrinkle for a grave.