POEM
A Woman's Looks
A woman’s looks
Are barbed hooks,
That catch by art
The strongest heart,
When yet they spend no breath.
But let them speak,
And sighing break
Forth into tears,
Their words are spears
That wound our souls to death.
The rarest wit
Is made forget,
And like a child
Is oft beguiled
With Love’s sweet-seeming bait.
Love with his rod
So like a god
Commands the mind
We cannot find,
Fair shows hide foul deceit.
Time, that all things
In order brings,
Hath taught me now
To be more slow
In giving faith to speech:
Since women’s words
No truth affords,
And when they kiss
They think by this
Us men to overreach.
