No Platonic Love
William Cartwright
Tell
me no more of minds embracing minds,
And hearts exchang’d for hearts;
That
spirits spirits meet, as winds do winds,
And mix their subt’lest parts;
That
two unbodied essences may kiss,
And
then like Angels, twist and feel one Bliss.
I
was that silly thing that once was wrought
To practise this thin love;
I
climb’d from sex to soul, from soul to thought;
But thinking there to move,
Headlong
I rolled from thought to soul, and then
From
soul I lighted at the sex again.
As
some strict down-looked men pretend to fast,
Who yet in closets eat;
So
lovers who profess they spririts taste,
Feed yet on grosser meat;
I
know they boast they souls to souls convey,
Howe’r
they meet, the body is the way.
Come,
I will undeceive thee, they that tread
Those vain aerial ways
Are
like young heirs and alchemists misled
To waste their wealth and days,
For
searching thus to be for ever rich,
They
only find a med’cine for the itch.
!William
Cartwright was an English poet and dramatist. His poems and plays were
collected in Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with Other Poems (Humphrey
Moseley) in 1651. He passed away in Oxford, England, on November 29, 1643.
⁞ William Cartwright passa nella Lebenswelt a Giorgio
Manganelli, Torino 22-28 aprile 1977, per averne un piccolo romanzo fiume: vedi
in V.S.Gaudio, LEBENSWELT, L’arzanà, Torino 1981.