Friday, October 7, 2016

The Heart in Poems: John Marston


If love be holy, if that mystery

(1576-1634)

If love be holy, if that mystery
O co-united hearts be sacrament;
If the unbounded goodness have infused
A sacred ardour of a mutual love
Into our species; if those amorous joys,
Those sweets of life, those comforts even in death,
Spring from a cause above our reason's reach;
If that clear flame deduce its heat from heaven,
'Tis, like its cause, eternal; always one, 
As is in th'instiller of divinest love,
Unchanged by time, immortal, maugre death.
But, oh! 'tis grown a figment; love, a jest:
A comic poesy: the soul of man is rotten,
Even to the core, no sound affection. 
Our love is hollow, vaulted, stands on props
Of circumstance, profit, or ambitious passes.

No comments:

Post a Comment