Francis Beaumont (Фрэнсис Бомонт)
The Glance
Cold Virtue guard me, or I shall endure From the next glance a double calenture Of fire and lust! Two flames, two Semeles, Dwell in those eyes, whose looser glowing rays Would thaw the frozen Russian into lust, And parch tile negro's hotter blood to dust. Dart not your bllls of wild-fire here; go throw Those flakes upon the eunuch's colder snow, Till he in active blood do boil as high As he that made him so in jealousy. When that loose queen of love did dress her eyes In the most taking flame to the prize At Ida; that faint glare to this desire Burnt like a taper to the zone of fire: And could she then the lustful youth have crowned With thee his Helen, Troy had never found Her fate in Sinon's fire; thy hotter eyes Had made it burn a quicker sacrifice To lust, whilst every glance in subtle wiles Had shot itself like lightning through the piles. Go blow upon some equal blood, and let Earth's hotter ray engender and beget New flames to dress the aged Paphians' quire, And lend the world new Cupids borne on fire. Dart no more here, those flatmes, nor strive to throw Your fire on him who is immured in snow! Those glances work on me like the weak shine The frosty sun throws on the Appenine, When the hill's active coldness doth go near To freeze the glimmering taper to his sphere: Each ray is lost on me, like the faint light The glow-worm shoots at the cold breast of night. Thus virtue can secure; but for that name I had been now sin's martyr, and your flame.
Francis Beaumont’s other poems:
