William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.
A Better AnswerMatthew Prior (16641721)
D
Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurled!
Prithee quit this caprice, and (as old Falstaff says)
Let us e’en talk a little like folks of this world.
The beauties, which Venus but lent to thy keeping?
Those looks were designed to inspire love and joy;
More ord’nary eyes may serve people for weeping.
Your judgment at once and my passion you wrong;
You take that for fact which will scarce be found wit:
Od’s life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
The diff’rence there is betwixt nature and art:
I court others in verse, but I love thee in prose;
And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.
How after his journeys he sets up his rest;
At morning o’er earth ’t is his fancy to run,
If at night he reclines on his Thetis’s breast.
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come:
No matter what beauties I saw in my way;
They were but my visits, but thou art my home.
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree;
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her
As he was a poet sublimer than me.