To make a final conquest of all me,
Love did
compose so sweet an enemy,
In whom both beauties to my death
agree,
Joining themselves in fatal harmony;
That while she
with her eyes my heart does bind,
She with her voice might captivate my
mind.
I could have fled from one but singly fair,
My
disentangled soul itself might save,
Breaking the curled trammels of
her hair.
But how should I avoid to be her slave,
Whose subtle
art invisibly can wreath
My fetters of the very air I breathe?
It had been easy fighting in some plain,
Where victory might hang in
equal choice,
But all resistance against her is vain,
Who has
th'advantage both of eyes and voice,
And all my forces needs must be
undone,
She having gained both the wind and sun.
--Andrew Marvell