SOUL AND BODY

POOR soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

[Foil'd by] these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?

Then, Soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

MADNESS OF LOVE

My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please.

My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;

For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee

bright,

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

PASSION-BLINDNESS

O ME, what eyes hath Love put in my head,

Which have no correspondence with true

sight!

Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's 'eye' is not so true as all men's 'no : '--

How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view ;
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.

O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me

blind,

Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

A LAST APPEAL

CANST thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,

When I against myself with thee partake?

Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?

Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?

What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?

But, Love, hate on, for now I know thy mind; Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.

O,

DE PROFUNDIS

FROM what power hast thou this powerful

might

With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill
That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds ?

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:

If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.