Virtue's no more in womankind But the green-sickness of the mind; Philosophy (their new delight) A kind of charcoal appetite. There 's no sophistry prevails Where all-convincing love assails, 30 But the disputing petticoat will warp, As skilful gamesters are to seek at sharp. The soldier, that man of iron, Whom ribs of horror all environ, That's strung with wire instead of veins, In whose embraces you're in chains, Let a magnetic girl appear, Straight he turns Cupid's cuirassier. Love storms his lips, and takes the fortress in, For all the bristled turnpikes of his chin. 40 Since love's artillery then checks The breastworks of the firmest sex, Come, let us in affections riot; Th' are sickly pleasures keep a diet. Give me a lover bold and free, Not eunuched with formality, Like an ambassador that beds a queen With the nice caution of a sword between. [_The Antiplatonic._ (_1653_.) This is a sort of half-way house between Cleveland's burlesques and his serious or semi-serious poems like _Fuscara_. It is also nearer to Suckling and the graceful-graceless school than most of his things. It is good.] [Line: 2 The alteration of _1677_ 'and ne'er fall to her' may be only an example of the tendency to 'regularize' (in this case by the omission of an extra foot). But I confess it seems to me better: for the slight irregularity of the construction replaces that of the line to advantage.] [Line: 10 I don't know whether the conceit of 'Pygmalion's _widow_' returning to marble (or ivory) when her husband-lover's embraces ceased is original with Cleveland. If it is, I make him my compliment. There is at any rate no hint of it in Ovid.] [Line: 18 _1677_ changed the good old '_for_' to 'thus'.] [Line: 19 sectaries of] = 'heretics in'.] [Line: 20 This is good: 'calcining flame' is good.] [Line: 22 'dubs' is said to mean 'stabs', as it certainly means 'strikes'; but this seems to have little or no appropriateness here and to ignore the quaint conceit of 'commence' in its academic meaning. 'Women _take their degrees_ by Cupid's dart: as the fact of being hunted by a king _ennobles_ a hart.' Cupid = the King of Love.] [Line: 24 'parole' too has a very delectable double meaning. This poem is really full of most excellent differences.] [Lines: 25-9 The lesson of the unregenerate Donne and the never-regenerate Carew.] [Line: 32 gamesters] = 'fencers'. to seek at sharp] = 'not good at sword-play'.] [Line: 33 'The sol-di-er'. By the way, did Butler borrow this 'iron' and 'environ' rhyme from Cleveland?] [Line: 43 The apostrophating mania made _1653_ contract to 'let's' and spoil the verse.] [Line: 44 Th'] here of course = 'they'.] Fuscara, or the Bee Errant.