Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/245

CANTO I.] That shall infuse eternal spring, And everlasting flourishing: Drink every letter on't in stum, And make it brisk champagne become; Where'er you tread, your foot shall set The primrose and the violet; All spices, perfumes, and sweet powders, Shall borrow from your breath their odours; Nature her charter shall renew, And take all lives of things from you; The world depend upon your eye, And when you frown upon it, die. Only our loves shall still survive, New worlds and natures to outlive; And like to heralds' moons, remain All crescents, without change or wane. Hold, hold, quoth she, no more of this, Sir Knight, you take your aim amiss; For you will find it a hard chapter, To catch me with poetic rapture, In which your mastery of art Doth show itself, and not your heart; Nor will you raise in mine combustion, By dint of high heroic fustian: She that with poetry is won, Is but a desk to write upon; And what men say of her, they mean No more than on the thing they lean.