Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/81

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To drown thee in, or dizzy height

From whence thou may’st take headlong flight?

Were not swift exit better far

Than all thy happiness to mar

By wedlock’s chains?

Phoroneus, who

The use of laws first taught unto

The Greeks, when lying on his bed

A-dying, to his brother said.

The young Leontius: Brother dear.

Calm were my death could I but hear

Thee promise that thou ne’er wilt take

A wife—this vow I prithee make.

And when Leontius sought the why,

He spake him thus wise: Verily,

Cruel experience all have found

Whose feet within the snares are bound

Of marriage, and if thou a wife

Shouldst take—alas! woe worth thy life!

Likewise did Heloïse entreat

(The abbess of the Paraclete)

Her lover Peter Abelard,

That he would utterly discard

All thought of marriage from his mind.

This lady, noble and refined,

Of genius bright and learning great,

Loving, and loved with passionate

Strong love, implored him not to wed,

And many a well-wrought reason sped

To him in letters, where she showed

That hard and troublous is the code