Here's none to spy or see;
Why do you doubt or stay?
I'll taste as lightly as the bee,

That doth but touch his flower, and flies

away

Once more, and, faith, I will be gone,
Can he that loves ask less than one?
Nay, you may err in this,

And all your bounty wrong.

This could be called but half a kiss; What we're but once to do, we should do long.

I will but mend the last, and tell
Where, how, it would have relished well;
Join lip to lip; and try.

Each suck the other's breath,
And whilst our tongues perplexed lie,
Let who will think us dead, or wish our
death.

8

URGING HER OF A PROMISE CHARIS one day in discourse Had of Love, and of his force, Lightly promised she would tell What a man she could love well. And that promise set on fire All that heard her with desire. With the rest, I long expected What the work would be effected. But we find that cold delay, And excuse spun every day, As, until she tell her one, We all fear she loveth none. Therefore, Charis, you must do't, For I will so urge you to 't You shall neither eat nor sleep, No, nor forth your window peep, With your emissary eye To fetch in the forms go by, And pronounce which band or lace Better fits him than his face. Nay, I will not let you sit 'Fore your idol glass a whit, To say over every purl There; or to reform a curl; Or with Secretary Sis To consult, if fucus this Be as good as was the last.All your sweet of life is past, Make account, unless you can, And that quickly, speak your man.

9

HER MAN DESCRIBED BY HER OWN
DICTAMEN

Of your trouble, Ben, to ease me,
I will tell what man would please me.
I would have him, if I could,
Noble; or of greater blood;
Titles, I confess, do take me,
And a woman God did make me.
French to boot, at least in fashion,
And his manners of that nation.

Young I'd have him too, and fair,
Yet a man; with crispëd hair,
Cast in thousand snares and rings,
For Love's fingers, and his wings;
Chestnut color, or more slack,
Gold, upon a ground of black.
Venus and Minerva's eyes,
For he must look wanton-wise.
Eyebrows bent like Cupid's bow,
Front, an ample field of snow;
Even nose, and cheek withal
Smooth as is the billiard-ball.
Chin as woolly as the peach;
And his lip should kissing teach,
Till he cherished too much beard,
And made Love or me afeard.

He should have a hand as soft
As the down, and show it oft;
Skin as smooth as any rush,
And so thin to see a blush
Rising through it ere it came;
All his blood should be a flame,
Quickly fired, as in beginners
In Love's school, and yet no sinners.
'Twere too long to speak of all.
What we harmony do call
In a body should be there.

Well he should his clothes, too, wear,
Yet no tailor help to make him;
Dressed, you still for man should take

him,

And not think h' had eat a stake, Or were set up in a brake.

Valiant he should be as fire, Showing danger more than ire. Bounteous as the clouds to earth, And as honest as his birth; All his actions to be such As to do no thing too much; Nor o'er-praise, not yet condemn, Nor out-value, nor contemn;

Nor do wrongs, nor wrongs receive,

Nor tie knots, nor knots unweave;
And from baseness to be free,
As he durst love Truth and me.
Such a man, with every part,
I could give my very heart;
But of one if short he came,
I can rest me where I am.

ΙΟ

ANOTHER LADY'S EXCEPTION, PRESENT
AT THE HEARING

FOR his mind I do not care,
That's a toy that I could spare.
Let his title be but great,

His clothes rich, and band sit neat,
Himself young, and face be good,
All I wish is understood.

What you please, you parts may call,
'Tis one good part I'd lie withal.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

6

THE HOUR-GLASS

CONSIDER this small dust, here in the glass, By atoms moved.

Could you believe that this the body was
Of one that loved;

And in his mistress' flame playing like a fly,
Was turned to cinders by her eye?
Yes; and in death, as life, unblest,
To have 't expressed,

Even ashes of lovers find no rest.

7

MY PICTURE, LEFT IN SCOTLAND

I NOW think Love is rather deaf than blind, For else it could not be,

That she

Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my suit behind.

I'm sure my language to her was as sweet,
And every close did meet

In sentence of as subtle feet,
As hath the youngest he

That sit in shadow of Apollo's tree.

Oh! but my conscious fears,

That fly my thoughts between, Tell me that she hath seen

My hundreds of gray hairs

Told six and forty years,

Read so much waste as she cannot embrace My mountain belly and my rocky face, And all these, through her eyes, have stopped her ears.

II

ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE:
TO THE READER

THIS figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-do the life.
Oh could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass as he hath hit
His face, the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass.
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.

12

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE
HATH LEFT US

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor Muse can praise too
much.

'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways

Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise; For silliest ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;

Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;

Or crafty malice might pretend this praise And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise. These are, as some infamous bawd or whore Should praise a matron. What could hurt

her more?

But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our
stage!

My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room;
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great, but disproportioned
Muses;

For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly out-
shine,

Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line. And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,

From thence to honor thee I would not seek For names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus,

Euripides, and Sophocles to us;

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were

on,

Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes

come.

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all; thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion; and that he
Who casts to write a living line must sweat
(Such as thine are), and strike the second
heat

Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,

And himself with it, that he thinks to frame,
Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;
For a good poet's made, as well as born.
And such wert thou! Look how the father's
face

Lives in his issue; even so the race

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines

In his well turned and true filed lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of
Thames

That so did take Eliza, and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage
Or influence chide or cheer the drooping
stage,

Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,

And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.

But, on thy malice, tell me didst thou spy
Any least loose or scurril paper lie
Concealed or kept there, that was fit to be,
By thy own vote, a sacrifice to thee?
Did I there wound the honors of the crown,
Or tax the glories of the church and gown?
Itch to defame the state, or brand the times,
And myself most, in lewd self-boasting
rhymes?

If none of these, then why this fire? Or find

A cause before, or leave me one behind.
Had I compiled from Amadis de Gaul,
The Esplandians, Arthurs, Palmerins, and
all

The learned library of Don Quixote,
And so some goodlier monster had begot;
Or spun out riddles, or weaved fifty tomes
Of Logographs, or curious Palindromes,
Or pumped for those hard trifles, anagrams,
Or eteostics, or those finer flams

Of eggs and halberds, cradles, and a hearse,
A pair of scissors, and a comb, in verse,
Acrostichs, and telestichs on jump names,
Thou then hadst had some color for thy
flames,

On such my serious follies. But thou❜lt say There were some pieces of as base allay, And as false stamp there; parcels of a play, Fitter to see the fire-light than the day; Adulterate monies, such as would not go.Thou shouldst have stayed till public fame said so;

She is the judge, thou executioner.

Or, if thou needs wouldst trench upon

Thou shouldst have cried, and all been proper stuff.

The Talmud and the Alcoran had come, With pieces of the Legend; the whole sum Of errant knighthood, with the dames and dwarfs,

The charmed boats, and the enchanted wharfs,

The Tristrams, Lancelots, Turpins, and the Peers,

All the mad Rolands and sweet Olivers,
To Merlins marvels, and his Cabal's loss,
With the chimera of the Rosy-cross,
Their seals, their characters, hermetic
rings,

Their gem of riches, and bright stone that brings

Invisibility, and strength, and tongues; The art of kindling the true coal by Lungs; With Nicolas' Pasquils, Meddle with your match,

And the strong lines that do the times so catch;

Or Captain Pamphlet's horse and foot, that sally

Upon the Exchange still, out of Pope'shead alley;

The weekly Courants, with Paul's seal; and all

The admired discourses of the prophet Ball.

These, hadst thou pleased either to dine

or sup,

Had made a meal for Vulcan to lick up.
But in my desk what was there to accite
So ravenous and vast an appetite?

I dare not say a body, but some parts
There were of search, and mastery in the

arts.

All the old Venusine, in poetry

And lighted by the Stagirite, could spy, Was there made English; with a grammar

too,

To teach some that their nurses could not do,

The purity of language; and, among
The rest, my journey into Scotland sung,
With all the adventures; three books, not
afraid

To speak the fate of the Sicilian maid
To our own ladies; and in story there
Of our fifth Henry, eight of his nine year;
Wherein was oil, besides the succors spent,
Which noble Carew, Cotton, Selden lent;