"Our hearts weak forts we must resign / When beauty does its forces join / With man's strong enemy, good wine."
— Sackville, Charles, sixth earl of Dorset and first earl of Middlesex (1643-1706)
Date
1663-1689
Metaphor
"Our hearts weak forts we must resign / When beauty does its forces join / With man's strong enemy, good wine."
Metaphor in Context
But you are unacquainted yet
With half the power of Amoret;
For she can drink as well as swive,
Her growing empire still must thrive.
Our hearts weak forts we must resign
When beauty does its forces join
With man's strong enemy, good wine.
This I was told by my Lord O'Brien,
A man whose words I much rely on:
He kept touch and came down hither
When you were scar'd by the foul weather.
But if thou wouldst forgiven be,
Say that a c--- detained thee;
C---! whose strong charms the world bewitches,
The joy of kings! the beggar's riches!
The courtier's business! statesman's leisure!
The tired tinker's ease and pleasure!
Of which, alas, I've leave to prate,
But oh, the rigor of my fate!
For want of bouncing bona-roba,
Lasciva est nobis pagina vita proba.
For that rhyme I was fain to fumble;
When Pegasus begins to stumble,
'Tis time to rest, your very humble.
With half the power of Amoret;
For she can drink as well as swive,
Her growing empire still must thrive.
Our hearts weak forts we must resign
When beauty does its forces join
With man's strong enemy, good wine.
This I was told by my Lord O'Brien,
A man whose words I much rely on:
He kept touch and came down hither
When you were scar'd by the foul weather.
But if thou wouldst forgiven be,
Say that a c--- detained thee;
C---! whose strong charms the world bewitches,
The joy of kings! the beggar's riches!
The courtier's business! statesman's leisure!
The tired tinker's ease and pleasure!
Of which, alas, I've leave to prate,
But oh, the rigor of my fate!
For want of bouncing bona-roba,
Lasciva est nobis pagina vita proba.
For that rhyme I was fain to fumble;
When Pegasus begins to stumble,
'Tis time to rest, your very humble.
Categories
Provenance
HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
The Poems of Sir George Etherege. Ed. James Thorpe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.
Date of Entry
08/19/2004
Date of Review
05/27/2011
