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Title: The Duell
Author: Richard Lovelace [
More Titles by Lovelace]
I.
Love drunk, the other day, knockt at my brest,
But I, alas! was not within.
My man, my ear, told me he came t' attest,
That without cause h'd boxed him,
And battered the windows of mine eyes,
And took my heart for one of's nunneries.
II.
I wondred at the outrage safe return'd,
And stormed at the base affront;
And by a friend of mine, bold faith, that burn'd,
I called him to a strict accompt.
He said that, by the law, the challeng'd might
Take the advantage both of arms and fight.
III.
Two darts of equal length and points he sent,
And nobly gave the choyce to me,
Which I not weigh'd, young and indifferent,
Now full of nought but victorie.
So we both met in one of's mother's groves,
The time, at the first murm'ring of her doves.
IV.
I stript myself naked all o're, as he:
For so I was best arm'd, when bare.
His first pass did my liver rase: yet I
Made home a falsify<1> too neer:
For when my arm to its true distance came,
I nothing touch'd but a fantastick flame.
V.
This, this is love we daily quarrel so,
An idle Don-Quichoterie:
We whip our selves with our own twisted wo,
And wound the ayre for a fly.
The only way t' undo this enemy
Is to laugh at the boy, and he will cry.
Note:
<1> "To falsify a thrust," says Phillips (WORLD OF WORDS, ed. 1706, art. FALSIFY), "is to make a feigned pass." Lovelace here employs the word as a substantive rather awkwardly; but the meaning is, no doubt, the same.
[The end]
Richard Lovelace's poem: Duell
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