* Sir John Suckling had a way with words. In “Loving and Beloved,” in the 1646 collection of his poems, Fragmenta Aurea – “incomparable peeces [sic],” reads the title page – he has this about romantic love:
Love is the fart/ Of every heart;/ It pains a man when ‘tis kept close/ And others doth offend when ‘tis let loose.
* Robert Herrick, “On a Perfum’d Lady”:
You say y’are sweet: how sho’d we know/ Whether you be sweet or no/ From Powders and Perfumes keep free;/ Then we shall smell how sweet you be.
Say that to a woman (or man) trailing clouds, not of glory like Wordsworth, but of perfume or cologne.
* Herrick again, in “Upon Himselfe”: He is not sure if getting married would reverse his “mop-ey’d” ( as in “mope”) condition,” says it might “put out the light,” presumably in his eye (and spirit).
This I read as one whom getting married helped immeasurably but who allows the other possibility and holds in due respect the other choice. The poem in question:
Mop-ey’d I am, as some have said,/ Because I’ve liv’d so long a maid [unmarried]:/ But grant that I sho’d [should] wedded be,/ Sho’d I a jot the better see?/ No, I sho’d think, that Marriage might,/ Rather [than] mend, put out the light.
