Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/74

62 For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,

Have found the ground of study's excellence

Without the beauty of a woman's face?

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:

They are the ground, the books, the academes,

From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.

Why, universal plodding poisons up

The nimble spirits in the arteries,

As motion and long-during action tires

The sinewy vigour of the traveller.

Now, for not looking on a woman's face,

You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,

And study too, the causer of your vow;

For where is any author in the world

Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?

Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,

And where we are our learning likewise is:

Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,

Do we not likewise see our learning there?

O we have made a vow to study, lords,

And in that vow we have forsworn our books:

For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,

In leaden contemplation have found out

Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes

Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?

Other slow arts entirely keep the brain,

And therefore, finding barren practisers,

Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;

But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,

Lives not alone immured in the brain,

But, with the motion of all elements,

 299–304 Cf. n.

304 Promethean: divine

305 poisons up; cf. n.

306 arteries; cf. n.

321 leaden: heavy, dull

322 numbers: verses, poems

324 keep: remain in

