Is Quiet Mind a Compliment?

To Lucasta, On Going To The Wars
Richard Lovelace

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breasts, and quiet mind,

To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such,
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.

"I like the picture." --the most outspoken girl in the class (and a very clever one)

"Although I think there's a discrepancy with the picture," --one of my favorite students (he is one of my favorites because he reminds me so much of my brother that I can't even express it), "He looks a little foppish, not honorable and war-like. Maybe he's just French."

At which, the class began to disintegrate into a discussion of his eyebrows.

I waffled on including this poem, because I'm not certain it's a good poem. But Sterns and Percy gave the go ahead (according to Percy, its paradox redeems it). So I did.

The kids tied "To Lucasta" to Aristotle on spiritedness. The poem also led into a discussion of the relationship between the good for the man and the good for the city, although the clever, outspoken girl pointed out that the narrator doesn't so much make an argument for his need to sacrifice for the city as an argument for his own moral superiority.

My other class tied his stronger embrace of the sword/horse/shield in defense of the polis to Aristotle's seeming affirmation of the polis over the household (or am I reading Arendt into Aristotle?--it is all blending together now).