© roy ballard 2012

O mistress mine, sweet Venus can’t complain

that love’s dark altar that she set in you

I ever did neglect nor take in vain

but you commanded it and I withdrew.

See what a thing is love when it is whipped,

snake-tongued and left to live on air:

as fleshless as the bones left in the crypt

and tattered as the relic shrouds they wear.

Love cannot take its sustenance from showers

nor dine on nectar where the bee has sipped,

nor, like a swift, snatch flies from airy towers

nor fly at all with wings so cruelly clipped.
Since love is not a heavy coin to spend

the love you cannot give me you can lend.