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النشر الإلكتروني

CI.

That you were once unkind, befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,

Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,

As I by yours, you have pass'd a hell of time :
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

1

To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.
Oh that our night of woe might have remember'd 1
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd
The humble salve wich wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

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Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

Full character'd with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,

Beyond all date, even to eternity :
Or at the least so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part

Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.
That poor retention 2 could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies, thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,

To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee,

Were to import forgetfulness in me.

1 'Remember'd:' reminded.-2 The table-book given to him by his friend.

CIII.

No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change :
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;

And rather make them born to our desire,

Than think that we before have heard them told.

Thy registers and thee I both defy,

Not wondering at the present nor the past;

For thy records and what we see do lie,

Made more or less with thy continual haste: This I do vow, and this shall ever be,

I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee:

If

my

CIV.

dear love were but the child of state,

It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd,

As subject to Time's love, or to Time's hate,

Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd. No, it was builded far from accident;

It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls

Under the blow of thrallèd discontent,

Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls :

It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,

But all alone stands hugely politic,

That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.

To this I witness call the fools of time,

Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

CV.

Were it aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,

Which prove more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour

Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, For compound sweet foregoing simple savour, Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? No;-let me be obsequious in thy heart,

And take thou my oblation, poor but free, Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul,

When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.

95

PART FOURTH.

CVI.

So is it not with me as with that Muse,

Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse; Who heaven itself for ornament doth use,

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse; Making a couplement of proud compare,

With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare That heaven's air in his huge rondure 1 hems.

Oh let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:
Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
I will not praise, that purpose not to sell.
1 'Rondure:' circumference.

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