Page:Works of Sir John Suckling.djvu/123

] Think how unsafe you are, if she should now

Not sell her honour at a lower rate

Than your place in his bed.

Orb. And would not you prove false, too, then?

Ari. By this—

And this—love's breakfast! [kisses her] By his feasts, too, yet

To come! by all the beauty in this face,

Divinity too great to be profan'd!

Orb. O, do not swear by that;

Cankers may eat that flower upon the stalk

(For sickness and mischance are great devourers);

And, when there is not in these cheeks and lips

Left red enough to blush at perjury,

When you shall make it, what shall I do then?

Ari. Our souls by that time, madam,

Will by long custom so acquainted be,

They will not need that duller trouch-man, Flesh;

But freely, and without those poorer helps,

Converse and mingle: meantime we'll teach

Our loves to speak, not thus to live by signs;

And action is his native language, madam.

This box but open'd to the sense will do it.

Orb. I undertake I know not what.

Ari. Thine own safety,

Dearest: let it be this night, if thou dost love

Thyself or me.

Orb. That's very sudden.

Ari. Not

If we be so, and we must now be wise:

For when their sun sets, ours begin to rise.

Zir. Then all my fears are true, and she is false,

False as a falling star or glowworm's fire.

This devil Beauty is compounded strangely:

It is a subtle point, and hard to know,

Whether it has in it more active tempting,

Or [is] more passive tempted;

So soon it forces, and so soon it yields.

Good Gods! she seiz'd my heart, as if from you