Well, take her, and like mounted George, in bed Boldly achieve thy Dragon's maiden-head: Where (though scarce sleep) thou mayst rest confident None dares beguile thee of thy punishment: The sin were not more foul that he should commit, Than is that She with whom he acted it. 40 Yet take this comfort: when old age shall raze, Or sickness ruin many a good face, Thy choice cannot impair; no cunning curse Can mend that night-piece, that is, make her worse. [_Madam Gabrina_] [Line: 7 'Orp[i]ment' = yellow arsenic--then, and to some extent still, used as a gold-dye.] [Line: 39 Malone MS. 22 omits _that_.] [Line: 41 It is curious that King, who has elsewhere followed Spenser in the matter of eye-rhyme pretty closely, did not spell 'raze', 'race', which was a very usual form and perhaps, as in 'race-ship', the commoner pronunciation.--The whole poem is one of his most disappointing. His Spanish distich--which (adopting Mr. Browning's use of 'fix') might be paraphrased: If a bad woman once has fix'd you, Put many a mile of ground betwixt you-- says nothing about mere _ugliness_; while, on the other hand, King does not utilize the prescription of absence as the only cure for ill-placed love. He has at first sight simply added (though, as one would expect, not in the most offensive form) another to the far too numerous dull and loathsome imitations of one of Horace's rare betrayals of the fact that he was not a gentleman. But see on next.] _The Defence._ _Piensan los Enamorados_ _Que tienen los otros los ojos quebrantados._ Why slightest thou what I approve? Thou art no Peer to try my love, Nor canst discern where her form lies, Unless thou saw'st her with my eyes. Say she were foul and blacker than The Night, or sunburnt African, If lik'd by me, 'tis I alone Can make a beauty where was none; For rated in my fancy, she Is so as she appears to me. 10 But 'tis not feature, or a face, That does my free election grace, Nor is my liking only led By a well-temper'd white and red; Could I enamour'd grow on those, The Lily and the blushing Rose United in one stalk might be As dear unto my thoughts as she. But I look farther, and do find A richer beauty in her mind; 20 Where something is so lasting fair, As time or age cannot impair. Hadst thou a perspective so clear, Thou couldst behold my object there; When thou her virtues shouldst espy, They'd force thee to confess that I Had cause to like her, and learn thence To love by judgement, not by sense.