Laxare Fibulam.

Love, I have broke
Thy yoke,
The neck is free;
But when I'm next
Love-vexed,
Then shackle me.

'Tis better yet
To fret
The feet or hands,
Than to enthral
Or gall
The neck with bands.

I abhor the slimy kiss,
Which to me most loathsome is.
Those lips please me which are placed
Close, but not too strictly laced:
Yielding I would have them; yet
Not a wimbling tongue admit:
What should poking-sticks make there,
When the ruffe is set elswhere?

I'm free from thee; and thou no more shalt hear
My puling pipe to beat against thine ear.
Farewell my shackles, though of pearl they be;
Such precious thraldom ne'er shall fetter me.
He loves his bonds who, when the first are broke,
Submits his neck unto a second yoke.

'Tis the Chirurgeon's praise, and height of art,
Not to cut off, but cure the vicious part.

Cynthius, pluck ye by the ear,
That ye may good doctrine hear;
Play not with the maiden-hair,
For each ringlet there's a snare.
Cheek, and eye, and lip, and chin -
These are traps to take fools in.
Arms, and hands, and all parts else,
Are but toils, or manacles,
Set on purpose to enthral
Men, but slothfuls most of all.
Live employed, and so live free
From these fetters; like to me,
Who have found, and still can prove,
The lazy man the most doth love.

No fault in women, to refuse
The offer which they most would chuse.
No fault: in women, to confess
How tedious they are in their dress;
No fault in women, to lay on
The tincture of vermilion;
And there to give the cheek a dye
Of white, where Nature doth deny.
No fault in women, to make show
Of largeness, when they're nothing so;
When, true it is, the outside swells
With inward buckram, little else.
No fault in women, though they be
But seldom from suspicion free;
No fault in womankind at all,
If they but slip, and never fall.