William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.
Loves New PhilosophyPhilip Ayres (16381712)
W
May come and learn of me
A new philosophy,
Such as no schools could e’er impart.
Love all my other notions does control,
And reads these stranger lectures to my soul.
Does sacred truths defame,
And Aristotle blame,
Concluding all by subtilty:
His syllogisms with such art are made,
Not Solomon himself could them evade.
His reasons pierce, like darts,
Men’s intellects and hearts;
Old maxims he destroys at will,
And blinded Plato so, he made him think,
’Twas water, when he gave him fire to drink.
All ages did allow;
But Love denies it now,
And says it makes his flame rage higher;
Which truth myself have prov’d for many years,
Wherein I’ve wept whole deluges of tears.
The ice no more can melt,
Nor can the fire be felt,
Or have it wonted influence on snow:
By your relentless heart is this exprest,
Your eyes are suns, the fire is in my breast:
That then the life must die:
This too I must deny,
My soul’s with her, who rules my fate.
Yet still my organs move a proof to give,
That soul and body can divided live.
This is an error too,
And found by me untrue;
My fair when near disturbs my peace,
But when she’s furthest off, no tongue can tell
The raging pangs of Love my heart does feel.
I this new axiom try:
And that all fear to die
By nature—a mistake I find:
For I, a man, do a fierce creature love,
And such, I know, that will my murd’ress prove.
Joy and grief in my breast,
Which give my soul no rest;
Both to torment me are combin’d:
For when I view the source of all my wrong,
I sigh my music, mix with tears my song.
I readily can prove
A paradox in Love,
And my conclusion hence deduce;
Cold Cynthia to my zeal yields no return,
Though ice her heart she makes my heart to burn.
It is no mystery
To be, and not to be;
I die to joy, and live to pain.
So that, my fair, I may be justly said,
To be, and not to be, alive and dead.
Of those ne’er felt Love’s flame,
And if my Cynthia blame
Thy arguments as sopphistries,
Tell her, this is Love’s New Philosophy,
Which none can understand, but such as try.