A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick

206. NO FAULT IN WOMEN

     No fault in women, to refuse
     The offer which they most would chuse.
     —No fault: in women, to confess
     How tedious they are in their dress;
     —No fault in women, to lay on
     The tincture of vermilion;
     And there to give the cheek a dye
     Of white, where Nature doth deny.
     —No fault in women, to make show
     Of largeness, when they're nothing so;
     When, true it is, the outside swells
     With inward buckram, little else.
     —No fault in women, though they be
     But seldom from suspicion free;
     —No fault in womankind at all,
     If they but slip, and never fall.