Gateway to the Classics: Oxford Book of English Verse, Part 3 by Arthur Quiller-Couch
 
Oxford Book of English Verse, Part 3 by  Arthur Quiller-Couch

The Libertine

A thousand martyrs I have made,

All sacrificed to my desire,

A thousand beauties have betray'd

That languish in resistless fire:

The untamed heart to hand I brought,

And fix'd the wild and wand'ring thought.


I never vow'd nor sigh'd in vain,

But both, tho' false, were well received;

The fair are pleased to give us pain,

And what they wish is soon believed:

And tho' I talk'd of wounds and smart,

Love's pleasures only touch'd my heart.


Alone the glory and the spoil

I always laughing bore away;

The triumphs without pain or toil,

Without the hell the heaven of joy;

And while I thus at random rove

Despise the fools that whine for love.

— Aphra Behn
1640–1689   


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