Love Despised

Can one resolve and hunt it from one's heart?
  This love, this god and fiend, that makes a hell
  Of many a life, in ways no tongue can tell,
  No mind divine, nor any word impart.
  Would not one think the slights that make hearts smart,
  The ice of love's disdain, the wint'ry well
  Of love's disfavor, love's own fire would quell?
  Or school its nature, too, to its own art.
  Why will men cringe and cry forever here
  For that which, once obtained, may prove a curse?
  Why not remember that, however fair,
  Decay is wed to Beauty? That each year
  Takes somewhat from the riches of her purse,
  Until at last her house of pride stands bare?