The Poetical Works of John Milton


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Chor: It is not vertue, wisdom, valour, wit,  
Strength, comliness of shape, or amplest merit  
That womans love can win or long inherit;  
But what it is, hard is to say,  
1010  
Harder to hit,  
(Which way soever men refer it)  
Much like thy riddle, Samson, in one day  
Or seven, though one should musing sit;  
If any of these or all, the Timnian bride  
Had not so soon preferr'd  
Thy Paranymph, worthless to thee compar'd,  
Successour in thy bed,  
1020  
Nor both so loosly disally'd  
Thir nuptials, nor this last so trecherously  
Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head.  
Is it for that such outward ornament  
Was lavish't on thir Sex, that inward gifts  
Were left for hast unfinish't, judgment scant,  
Capacity not rais'd to apprehend  
Or value what is best  
In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong?  
Or was too much of self-love mixt,  
Of constancy no root infixt,  
1030  
That either they love nothing, or not long?  
What e're it be, to wisest men and best  
755  


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