890
That is no more than ev’ry lover
Does from his hackney-lady suffer;
That makes no breach of faith and love,
But rather (sometimes) serves t’ improve. 
For as in running, ev’ry pace 895
Is but between two legs a race,
In which both do their uttermost
To get before, and win the post,
Yet when they’re at their race’s ends,
They’re still as kind and constant friends, 900
And, to relieve their weariness,
By turns give one another ease;
So all those false alarms of strife
Between the husband and the wife,
And little quarrels, often prove 905
To be but new recruits of love;
When those wh’ are always kind or coy,
In time must either tire or cloy. 
Nor are their loudest clamours more,
Than as they’re relish’d, sweet or sour; 910
Like musick, that proves bad or good;
According as ’tis understood. 
In all amours, a lover burns
With frowns as well as smiles by turns;
And hearts have been as aft with sullen 915
As charming looks surpriz’d and stolen. 
Then why should more bewitching clamour
Some lovers not as much enamour? 
For discords make the sweetest airs
And curses are a kind of pray’rs; 920
Too slight alloys for all those grand
Felicities by marriage gain’d. 
For nothing else has pow’r to settle
Th’ interests of love perpetual;
An act and deed, that that makes one heart 925
Becomes another’s counter-part,
And passes fines on faith and love,
Inroll’d and register’d above,
To seal the slippery knots of vows,
Which nothing else but death can loose. 930
And what security’s too strong,
To guard that gentle heart from wrong,
That to its friend is glad to pass
Itself away, and all it has;
And, like an anchorite, gives over 935
This world for th’ heaven of lover? 
I grant (quoth she) there are some few
Who take that course, and find it true
But millions whom the same does sentence
To heav’n b’ another way —­ repentance. 940
Love’s arrows are but shot at rovers;
Though all they hit, they turn to lovers;
And all the weighty consequents
Depend upon more blind events,
Than gamesters, when they play a set 945
With greatest cunning at piquet,
Put out with caution, but take in
They know not what, unsight, unseen,
For what do lovers, when they’re fast
In one another’s arms embrac’t, 950
But strive to plunder, and convey
Each other, like a prize, away? 
To change the property of selves,
As sucking children are by elves? 
And if they use their persons so, 955
What will they to their fortunes do?