John Suckling

If of herself she cannot love, Nothing can make her: The devil take her!

Fragmenta Aurea, 1646

Sir John Suckling (February 10, 1609 – June 1, 1642) was an English Cavalier poet.

Quotes

Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover?

Full text at Wikisource

• Why so pale and wan, fond lover
  Prithee, why so pale?

• Will, when looking well can't move her,
  Looking ill prevail?
  Prithee, why so pale?

• Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move:
  This cannot take her.
  If of herself she cannot love,
  Nothing can make her:
  The devil take her!

Other poems

• If I a fancy take
  To black and blue,
  That fancy doth it beauty make.
  • Of thee (kind boy) I ask no red and white.

• 'Tis now since I sat down before
  That foolish fort, a heart,
  (Time strangely spent) a year, and more,
  And still I did my part:
  • 'Tis Now, Since I Sat Down Before.

• Oh for some honest lover's ghost,
  Some kind unbodied post
  Sent from the shades below!
  I strangely long to know
  Whether the nobler chaplets wear
  Those that their mistress' scorn did bear,
  Or those that were used kindly.
  • Oh! For some honest lover's ghost.

• Her feet beneath her petticoat
  Like little mice stole in and out,
  As if they feared the light;
  But oh, she dances such a way!
  No sun upon an Easter-day
  Is half so fine a sight.
  • Ballad upon a Wedding. Compare: "Her pretty feet, like snails, did creep A little out, and then, As if they played at bo-peep, Did soon draw in again", Robert Herrick, To Mistress Susanna Southwell.

External links

• Selected works at the Library of Toronto