Nature's Lay Idiot, I Taught Thee to Love by John Donne

Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love, / And in that sophistry, O! thou dost prove / Too subtle; fool, thou didst not understand / The mystic language of the eye nor hand; / Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air / Of sighs, and say, "This lies, this sounds despair"; / Nor by th' eye's water cast a malady / Desperately hot, or changing feverously. / I had not taught thee then the alphabet / Of flowers, how they, devisefully being set / And bound up, might with speechless secrecy / Deliver errands mutely, and mutually. / Remember since all thy words used to be / To every suitor, "Ay, if my friends agree; " / Since household charms, thy husband's name to teach, / Were all the love-tricks that thy wit could reach; / And since an hour's discourse could scarce have made / One answer in thee, and that ill array'd / In broken proverbs, and torn sentences. / Thou art not by so many duties his- / That from th' world's common having sever'd thee, / Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see- / As mine; who have with amorous delicacies / Refined thee into a blissful paradise. / Thy graces and good works my creatures be; / I planted knowledge and life's tree in thee; / Which O! shall strangers taste? Must I, alas! / Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass? / Chafe wax for other's seals? break a colt's force, / And leave him then, being made a ready horse?