Let it not your wonder move, <br />Less your laughter, that I love. <br />Though I now write fifty years, <br />I have had, and have, my peers. <br />Poets, though divine, are men; <br />Some have loved as old again. <br />And it is not always face, <br />Clothes, or fortune gives the grace, <br />Or the feature, or the youth; <br />But the language and the truth, <br />With the ardor and the passion, <br />Gives the lover weight and fashion. <br />If you then would hear the story, <br />First, prepare you to be sorry <br />That you never knew till now <br />Either whom to love or how; <br />But be glad as soon with me <br />When you hear that this is she <br />Of whose beauty it was sung, <br />She shall make the old man young, <br />Keep the middle age at stay, <br />And let nothing hide decay, <br />Till she be the reason why <br />All the world for love may die.<br /><br />Ben Jonson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/his-excuse-for-loving/
