Against Love by William Rowley

Love is a law, a discord of such force,
That ‘twixt our sense and reason makes divorce;
Love’s a desire, that to obtain betime,
We lose an age of years plucked from our prime;
Love is a thing to which we soon consent,
As soon refuse, but sooner far repent.

Then what must women be, that are the cause
That love hath life? that lovers feel such laws?
They’re like the winds upon Lepanthae’s shore,
That still are changing: O, then love no more!
A woman’s love is like that Syrian flower
That buds and spreads and withers in an hour.

From: Bullen, A.H. (ed), Lyrics from the Dramatists of the Elizabethan Age, 1889, John C. Nimmo: London, p. 151.
(https://archive.org/stream/cu31924013294271#page/n185/mode/2up)

Date: 1661 (published)

By: William Rowley (c1585-1626)