The Perfume by John Donne

Once, and but once, found in thy company, / All thy supposed escapes are laid on me; / And as a thief at bar is question'd there / By all the men that have been robb'd that year, / So am I-by this traitorous means surprised- / By thy hydroptic father catechized. / Though he had wont to search with glazèd eyes, / As though he came to kill a cockatrice; / Though he hath oft sworn that he would remove / Thy beauty's beauty, and food of our love, / Hope of his goods, if I with thee were seen, / Yet close and secret, as our souls, we've been. / Though thy immortal mother, which doth lie / Still buried in her bed, yet will not die, / Takes this advantage to sleep out daylight, / And watch thy entries and returns all night; / And, when she takes thy hand, and would seem kind, / Doth search what rings and armlets she can find; / And kissing notes the colour of thy face; / And fearing lest thou'rt swollen, doth thee embrace; / And to try if thou long, doth name strange meats; / And notes thy paleness, blushing, sighs, and sweats; / And politicly will to thee confess / The sins of her own youth's rank lustiness; / Yet love these sorceries did remove, and move / Thee to gull thine own mother for my love. / Thy little brethren, which like fairy sprites / Oft skipp'd into our chamber, those sweet nights, / And kiss'd, and ingled on thy father's knee, / Were bribed next day to tell what they did see; / The grim-eight-foot-high-iron-bound serving-man, / That oft names God in oaths, and only then, / He that, to bar the first gate, doth as wide / As the great Rhodian Colossus stride / -Which, if in hell no other pains there were, / Makes me fear hell, because he must be there- / Though by thy father he were hired to this, / Could never witness any touch or kiss. / But O! too common ill, I brought with me / That, which betray'd me to mine enemy, / A loud perfume, which at my entrance cried / E'en at thy father's nose; so were we spied. / When, like a tyrant king, that in his bed / Smelt gunpowder, the pale wretch shivered, / Had it been some bad smell, he would have thought / That his own feet, or breath, that smell had wrought; / But as we in our isle imprisoned, / Where cattle only and divers dogs are bred, / The precious unicorns strange monsters call, / So thought he good strange, that had none at all. / I taught my silks their whistling to forbear; / Even my oppress'd shoes dumb and speechless were; / Only thou bittersweet, whom I had laid / Next me, me traitorously hast betray'd, / And unsuspected hast invisibly / At once fled unto him, and stay'd with me. / Base excrement of earth, which dost confound / Sense from distinguishing the sick from sound! / By thee the silly amorous sucks his death / By drawing in a leprous harlot's breath; / By thee, the greatest stain to man's estate / Falls on us, to be call'd effeminate; / Though you be much loved in the prince's hall, / There things that seem exceed substantial; / Gods, when ye fumed on altars, were pleased well, / Because you were burnt, not that they liked your smell; / You're loathsome all, being taken simply alone; / Shall we love ill things join'd, and hate each one? / If you were good, your good doth soon decay; / And you are rare; that takes the good away: / And my perfumes I give most willingly / To embalm thy father's corpse; what? will he die?