Though you, Diana-like, have lived still chaste,
Yet must you not, fair, die a maid at last.
The roses on your cheek were never made
To bless the eye alone, and so to fade;
Nor had the cherries on your lips their being
To please no other sense than that of seeing.
You were not made to look on, though that be
A bliss too great for poor mortality:
In that alone those rarer parts you have
To better uses sure wise nature gave
Than that you put them to: -to love, to wed,
For Hymen's rights, and for the marriage-bed
You were ordained, and not to lie alone.
One is no number, till that two be one.
To keep a maidenhead but till fifteen
Is worse than murder, and a greater sin
Than to have lost it in the lawful sheets
With one that should want skill to reap those sweets;
But not to lose 't at all -by Venus, this,
And by her son, inexplicable is:
And should each female guilty be o' th' crime,
The world should have its end before its time.