LOVE AND BLANDISHMENTS

Beware the love and blandishments of poets
for you will find they are as other men
except for this – they have a skill and know it
and each will, like a weapon, wield his pen.

With words alone let no man steal your thyme
just keep your garden fair, and lock the gate.
Do not admit the flattery of rhyme
however much they plead or remonstrate.

So what if he’s been writing you a sonnet
to his pure goddess, whom he worships true?
You can be sure he’s spent no time upon it
and other goddesses have heard it too.

Beneath your sacred shrine where love’s flame flickers
he only wants to get inside your knickers.