Alexander Brome

The Young Lover

1.

TUsh! never tell me, I'm too young
For loving, or too Green,
She staies at least seven years too long
That's wedded at fourteen.
Age and Discretion fit
Grave Matrons, whose desires and youths are past.
Love needs not, nor has wit.
They in whose youthful breast dwels nought but frost
Can only mourn the daies, and joyes, they've lost.

2.

Lambs bring forth Lambs, and Doves bring Doves
As soon as they'r begotten:
Then why should Ladies linger loves,
As if not ripe till rotten.
'Tis envious age pe••wades
This tedious heresie for men to •oe
Stale Ni•phs and Vestal maids,
While they in modesty must answer No.
Late Love, like late Repentance, seldom's true.

3.

Gray hairs are fitter for the Grave
Than for the bridal bed;
What pleasure can a lover have
In a wither'd Maidenhead?
Dry bones and rotten limbs
Make Hymen's Temple turn an Hospital:
Age all our beauty dims.
Though Lands must not till one and twenty fall,
The laws to love prescribe no time at all.

4.

Nature's exalted in our time;
And what our Grandames then
At four and twenty scarce could climbe,
We can arrive at ten.
Youth of it self doth bring us
Provocatives within, and we do scorn
Love-powders and Eringoes.
Cupid himself's a childe, and 'twill be sworn,
Lovers like Poets, are not made, but born.