The Guiltless Inconstant

My first love, whom all beauties did adorn,Firing my heart, supprest it with her scorn;Since like the tinder in my breast it lies,By every sparkle made a sacrifice.Each wanton eye can kindle my desire,5And that is free to all which was entire.Desiring more, by the desire I lost,As those that in consumptions linger most.And now my wand'ring thoughts are not confin'dUnto one woman, but to womankind:10This for her shape I love, that for her face,This for her gesture, or some other grace:And where that none of all these things I find,I choose her by the kernel, not the rind:And so I hope, since my first hope is gone,15To find in many what I lost in one;And, like to merchants after some great loss,Trade by retail, that cannot do in gross.

The fault is hers that made me go astray;He needs must wander that hath lost his way:20Guiltless I am; she doth this change provoke,And made that charcoal, which to her was oak,And as a looking-glass from the aspect,Whilst it is whole, doth but one face reflect;But, being crackt or broken, there are grown25Many less faces, where there was but one;So love unto my heart did first preferHer image, and there placed none but her;But, since 'twas broke and martyr'd by her scorn,Many less faces in her place are born.30