I Cannot Tell [sonnet]

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Title:     I Cannot Tell [sonnet]
Author: Richard Lovelace [More Titles by Lovelace]

I.
I cannot tell, who loves the skeleton
Of a poor marmoset; nought but boan, boan;
Give me a nakednesse, with her cloath's on.

II.
Such, whose white-sattin upper coat of skin,
Cut upon velvet rich incarnadin,<1>
Has yet a body (and of flesh) within.

III.
Sure, it is meant good husbandry<2> in men,
Who do incorporate with aery leane,
T' repair their sides, and get their ribb agen.

IV.
Hard hap unto that huntsman, that decrees
Fat joys for all his swet, when as he sees,
After his 'say,<3> nought but his keepers fees.

V.
Then, Love, I beg, when next thou tak'st thy bow,
Thy angry shafts, and dost heart-chasing go,
Passe RASCALL DEARE, strike me the largest doe.<4>

Notes:
<1> i.e. Carnation hue, a species of red. As an adjective, the word is peculiarly rare.

<2> Management or economy.

<3> i.e. Essay.

<4> A RASCAL DEER was formerly a well-known term among sportsmen, signifying a lean beast, not worth pursuit. Thus in A C. MERY TALYS (1525), No. 29, we find:--"[they] apoynted thys Welchman to stand still, and forbade him in any wyse to shote at no rascal dere, but to make sure of the greate male, and spare not." In the new edition of Nares, other and more recent examples of the employment of the term are given. But in the BOOK OF SAINT ALBANS, 1486, RASCAL is used in the signification merely of a beast other than one of "enchace."

"And where that ye come in playne or in place,
I shall you tell whyche ben bestys of enchace.
One of them is the bucke: a nother is the doo:
The foxe and the marteron: and the wylde roo.
And ye shall, my dere chylde, other bestys all,
Where so ye theym finde, Rascall ye shall them call."

[The end]
Richard Lovelace's poem: I Cannot Tell [sonnet]

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