If You Refuse Me Once

Listen to:

If You Refuse Me Once (3:05)

by Sir John Suckling 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Sir John Suckling was born this day in 1609 in Middlesex, England.

If you refuse me once, and think again,

            I will complain.

You are deceiv’d, love is no work of art,

            It must be got and born,

            Not made and worn,

By every one that hath a heart.

Or do you think they more than once can die,

            Whom you deny?

Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day,

            Like the old poets feign

            And tell the pain

They met, but in the common way?

Or do you think ’t too soon to yield,

            And quit the field?

Nor is that right, they yield that first entreat;

            Once one may crave for love,

            But more would prove

This heart too little, that too great.

Oh that I were all soul, that I might prove

      For you as fit a love

As you are for an angel; for I know,

None but pure spirits are fit loves for you.

You are all ethereal; there’s in you no dross,

      Nor any part that’s gross.

Your coarsest part is like a curious lawn,

The vestal relics for a covering drawn.

Your other parts, part of the purest fire

      That e’er Heav’n did inspire,

Makes every thought that is refin’d by it

A quintessence of goodness and of wit.

Thus have your raptures reach’d to that degree

      In love’s philosophy,

That you can figure to yourself a fire

Void of all heat, a love without desire.

Nor in divinity do you go less;

      You think, and you profess,

That souls may have a plenitude of joy,

Although their bodies meet not to employ.

But I must needs confess, I do not find

      The motions of my mind

So purified as yet, but at the best

My body claims in them an interest.

I hold that perfect joy makes all our parts

      As joyful as our hearts.

Our senses tell us, if we please not them,

Our love is but a dotage or a dream.

How shall we then agree? you may descend,

      But will not, to my end.

I fain would tune my fancy to your key,

But cannot reach to that obstructed way.

There rests but this, that whilst we sorrow here,

      Our bodies may draw near;

And, when no more their joys they can extend,

Then let our souls begin where they did end.