Why I Write Not of Love

Ben Jonson

1572 to 1637

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Some act of love's bound to reherse,
I thought to bind him, in my verse:
Which when he felt, Away (quoth hee)
Can Poets hope to fetter mee?
It is enough, they once did get
Mars, and my Mother, in their net:
I weare not these my wings in vaine.
With which he fled me: and againe,
Into my ri'mes could ne're be got
By any arte. Then wonder not,
That since, my numbers are so cold,
When Love is fled, and I grow old.