A Warning

VICTORIOUS beauty! though your eyes

Are able to subdue an host

And therefore are unlike to boast

The taking of a little prize,

Do not a single heart despise.

It came alone, but yet so arm’d

With former love I durst have sworn

That when a privy coat was worn

With characters of beauty charm’d

Thereby it might have ’scaped unharmed.

But neither steel nor stony breast

Are proof against those looks of thine;

Nor can a beauty less divine

Of any heart be long possessed

When thou pretend’st an interest.

Thy conquest in regard of me,

Alas! is small; but in respect

Of her that did my love protect,

Were it divulged, deserves to be

Recorded for a victory.

And such a one—as some that view

Her lovely face perhaps may say—

Though you have stolen my heart away,

If all your servants prove not true.

May steal a heart or two from you.