Which think to 'stablish dangerous conftancy; But I have told them, fince you will be true, You fhall be true to them who're falfe to you.
FOR every hour that thou wilt spare me now I will allow,
Ufurious god of Love! twenty to thee, When with my brown my gray hairs equal be; Till then, Love! let my body range, and let Me travel, fojourn, fnatch, plot, have, forget, Refume my last year's relict; think that yet We had never met.
Let me think any rival's letter mine, And at next nine
Keep midnight's promise; mistake by the way The maid, and tell the lady of that delay; Only let me love none, no, not the sport From country grafs to comfitures of court, Or city's quelque-chefes; let not report My mind tranfport.
This bargain's good; if, when I'm old, I be Inflam'd by thee,
If thine own honour, or my fhame or pain Thou covet moft, at that age thou shalt gain: Do thy will then; then subject and degree, And fruit of love, Love! I fubmit to thee: Spare me till then, I'll bear it, though the be One that loves me.
FOR God's fake hold your tongue, and let me love, Or chide my palfy or my gout,
My five gray hairs or ruin'd fortunes flout; With wealth your state, your mind with arts im- prove.
Take you a courfe, get you a place, Obferve his Honour or his Grace, Or the Kings real or his ftamped face Contemplate; what you will approve, So you will let me love.
Alas! alas! who's injur'd by my love? What merchants' fhips have my fighs drown'd? Who fays my tears have overflow'd his ground? When did my colds a forward fpring remove? When did the heats which my reins fill Add one more to the plaguy bill? Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out ftill Litigious men whom quarrels move, Though the and I do love.
Call's what you will, we are made fuch by love; Call her one, me another fly;
We are tapers too, and at our own coft die; And we in us find th' eagle and the dove;
The phoenix riddle hath more wit By us; we two, being one, are it; So to one neutral thing both sexes fit. We die and rife the fame, and prove Mysterious by this love.
We can die by it, if not live by love. And if unfit for tomb or hearfe Our legend be, it will be fit for verse; And if no piece of chronicle we prove, We'll build in fonnets pretty rooms. As well a well-wrought urn becomes The greatest ashes as half-acre tombs; And by those hymns all shall approve Us canoniz'd for love:
And thus invoke us, you whom reverend love Made one another's hermitage;
You to whom love was peace, that now is rage Who did the whole world's foul contract, drove
Into the glaffes of your eyes,
So made fuch mirrors and fuch fpies, That they did all to you epitomise. Countries, towns, courts, beg from above A pattern of our love.
I AM two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry:
But where's that wife man that would not be If he would not deny?
Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked la Do purge fea water's fretful falt away, I thought if I could draw my pains Through rhime's vexation 1 fhould them allay Grief brought to number cannot be fo fierce, For he tames it that fetters it in verfe : But when I have done fe,
Some man, his art or voice to fhow, Doth fet and fing my pain,
And, by delighting many, frees again Grief, which verfe did restrain.
To love and grief tribute of verse belongs, But not of fuch as pleases when 'tis read; Both are increased by fuch fongs; For both their triumphs fo are published, And I, which was two fools, do fo grow three Who are a little wife the best fools be.
LOVER'S INFINITENESS.
Ir yet I have not all thy love, Dear! I fhall never have it all:
I cannot breathe one other figh to move, Nor can entreat one other tear to fall; And all my treasure, which should purchase th Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters, I have spent Yet no more can be due to me
Than at the bargain made was meant
Or, if then thou giv'st me all,
All was out all, which thou hadst then: But if in thy heart fince there be, or fhall, New love created be by other men,
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears, In úghs, in saths, in letters, outbid me,
This new love may beget new fears, For this love was not vow'd by thee; And yet it was thy gift, being general.
The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever fhall Grow there, Dear! I fhould have it all.
Yet I would not have all yet;
He that hath all can have no more:
And fince my love doth every day admit
New growth, thou fhouldft have new rewards in fore.
Then anft not every day give me thy heart;
If thou can give it, then thou never gav'ft it. Lovers riddles are, that though thy heart depart, It days at home, and thou with lofing sav'st it: But we will love a way more liberal
Than charging hearts to join us! fo we shall Beat, and one another's all.
SWRITEST Love! I do not go For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can fhew
A fitter love for me;
Bat fince that I Mat die at laft, 't is best Thato ufe myself in jest Bygted death to dic.
Yehernight the fun went hence, And yet is here to-day;
He hath no defire nor sense,
Ner half fo short a way:
Then fear not me, But believe that I fhall make Pair journies, fince I take
More wings and fpurs than he.
O how feeble is man's power, That if good fortune fall,
¦ Cannot add another hour,
Nor a loft hour recall!
Bat come bad chance,
And we join to 't our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
ltici o'er us t' advance.
When thou figh'ft, thou figh'st no wind,
But figh'ft my foul away;
When thou weep'ft, unkindly kind, My life's blood doth decay.
That thou lov'ft me as thou fay'ft; If in thine my life thou wafte, That art the life of me.
Let not thy divining heart Forethink me any ill, Destiny may take thy part, And may thy fears fulfil; But think that we
Are but laid afide to fleep: They who one another keep Alive ne'er parted be.
WHEN laft I dy'd (and, Dear! I die As often as from thee I go, Though it be but an hour ago, And lovers hours be full eternity)
I can remember yet that I
Something did fay, and fomething did beftow; Though I be dead, which fent me, I might be Mine own executor and legacy.
I heard me fay, Tell her anon
That myself, that is you, not I,
Did kill me; and when I felt me die,
I bid me fend my heart when I was gone, But I, alas! could find there none.
When I had rip'd and fearch'd where hearts fhould It kill'd me again that 1, who still was true In life, in my laft will should cozen you.
Yet I found fomething like a heart, For colours it and corners had; It was not good, it was not bad,
It was entire to none, and few had part:
As good as could be made by art
It feem'd, and therefore for our lofs be fad. I meant to fend that heart instead of mine; But, oh! no man could hold it, for 't was thine.
Ou! do not die, for I fhall hate All women fo, when thou art gone, That thee I fhall not celebrate, When I remember thou waft one.
But yet thou canst not die, I know: To leave this world behind is death; But when thou from this world wilt go, The whole world vapours in thy breath.
Or if when thou, the world's foul, goeft, It stay, 't is but thy carcafe then, The fairest woman but thy ghoit, But corrupt worms the worthieft men.
O wrangling Schools! that fearch what fire Shall burn this world: had none the wit Unto this knowledge to afpire, That this her Fever might be it?
And yet she cannot waste by this,
Nor long endure this torturing wrong, For more corruption needful is To fuel fuch a fever long.
These burning fits but meteors be, Whose matter in thee foon is fpent; Thy beauty, and all parts which are thee, Are an unchangeable firmament:
Yet 't was of my mind, feizing thee, Though it in thee cannot perfevere; For I had rather owner be
Of thee one hour than all else ever.
TWICE or thrice had I lov'd thee Before I knew thy face or name; So in a voice, fo in a fhapeless flame, Angels affect us oft', and worshipp'd be : Still when to where thou wert I came, Some lovely glorious nothing did I fee: But fince my foul, whofe child love is, Takes limbs of flesh, and elfe could nothing do, More fubtile than the parent is
Love muft not be, but take a body too; And therefore what thou wert, and who, I bid Love afk, and now
That it affume thy body I allow,
And fix itself in thy lips, eyes, and brow.
Whilft thus to ballaft Love I thought, And fo more steadily to 'have gone With wares which would fink admiration, I faw I had Love's pinnace over-fraught; Thy every hair for Love to work upon
Is much too much, fome fitter must be fought; For nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme and scattering bright, can love inhere: Then as an angel face, and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear, So thy love may be my love's fphere. Juft fuch disparity
As is 'twixt Air's and Angel's purity, *Twixt women's love and men's will ever be.
THE ANNIVERSARY.
ALL kings, and all their favourites,
All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
The fun itfelf (which makes times as they pass} Is elder by a year now than it was When thou and I first one another faw: All other things to their deftruction draw, Only our love hath no decay;
This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday; Running, it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his firft, last, everlasting day. Two graves must hide thine and my corfe: If one might, death were no divorce. Alas! as well as other princes, we (Who prince enough in one another be) Muft leave at laft in death thefe eyes and ears, Oft' fed with true oaths and with fweet falt tears: But fouls where nothing dwells but love, (All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove This, or a love increased there above, When bodies to their graves, fouls from their graves remove.
And then we shall be th'roughly bleft, But now no more than all the rest. Here upon earth were kings, and none but we Can be fuch kings, nor of such subjects be. Who is fo fafe as we? where none can do Treafon to us, except one of us two. True and falfe fears let us refrain: Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Years and years unto years, till we attain To write threefcore; this is the fecond of our reign.
A VALEDICTION
Of my Name in the Window.
Mr name, engrav'd herein,
Doth contribute my firmnefs to this glass,
So in forgetting thou rememb'reft right, And unaware to me fhall write.
But glafs and lines must be
No means our firm substantial love to keep; Near death inflicts this lethargy, And thus I murmur in my fleep: Impute this idle talk to that I go, For dying men talk often fo.
BLASTED with fighs, and surrounded with tears, Hither I come to feek the fpring,
And at mine eyes, and at mine ears, Receive fuch balm as elfe cures every thing: But, O! felf-traitor, I do bring
The spider Love, which tranfubftantiates all, And can convert manna to gall;
And that this place may thoroughly be thought True Paradife, I have the ferpent brought.
'Twere wholfomer for me that winter did Benight the glory of this place, And that a grave frost did forbid
Thefe trees to laugh and mock me to my face: But fince I cannot this difgrace
Endure, nor leave this Garden, Love, let me Some fenfeless piece of this place be; Make me a mandrake, so I may grow here, Or a stone fountain weeping out my year.
Hither with crystal vials, Lovers! come, And take my tears, which are love's wine, And try your mistress' tears at home,
For all are falfe that taste not just like mine: Alas! hearts do not in eyes fhine,
Nor can you more judge woman's thoughts by tears, Than by her fhadow what she wears.
O perverse sex! where none is true but the, Who's therefore true, because her truth kills me.
VALEDICTION TO HIS BOOK.
I'LL tell thee now (dear Love) what thou shalt de To anger Destiny, as the doth us;
How I fhall stay, though the cloigne me thus, And how pofterity shall know it too; How thine may out-endure Sibyl's glory, and obfcure
Her who from Pindar could allure,
And her through whofe help Lucan is not lame, And her whose book (they fay) Homer did find and name.
Study our manufcripts, thofe myriads
Of letters which past 'twixt thee and me; Thence write our annals, and in them will be To all whom love's fubliming fire invades, Rule and example found: There the faith of any ground
No fchifmatic will dare to wound,
Schools might learn fciences, fpheres mufic, angels Bad doth itfelf and others wafte;
Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I'll study thee, As he removes far off that great heights takes: How great love is prefence beft trial makes, But abfence tries how long this love will be. To take a latitude
Sun or ftars are fitlieft view'd
At their brighteft; but to conclude
Of longitudes, what other way have we
So they deserve nor blame nor praise.
But they are ours as fruits are ours; He that but taftes, he that devours, And he that leaves all, doth as well: Chang'd loves are but chang'd forts of meat, And when he hath the kernel ate, Who doth not fling away the fhell?
I SCARCE believe my love to be fo pure As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Viciffitude and feafon as the grass.
Methinks I lied all winter, when I fwore My love was infinite, if fpring make 't more. But if this medicine, Love, which cures all forrow With more, not only be no quinteffence, But mixt of all ftuffs, vexing foul or fenfe, And of the fun his active vigour borrow, Love's not fo pure an abstract as they use To fay, which have no miftrefs but their Mufe: But, as all elfe, being elemented too, Love fometimes would contemplate, fometimes do.
And yet no greater, but more eminent, Love by the fpring is grown;
As in the firmament
Stars by the fun are not enlarg'd, but shown. Gentle love-deeds, as bloffoms on a bough, From love's awakened root do bud out now.
If, as in water ftirr'd more circles be Produc'd by one, love fuch additions take; Thofe, like fo many fpheres, but one heaven make,
But to mark when and where the dark eclipfes be? For they are all concentric unto thee;
GOOD we must love, and muft hate ill, For ill is ill, and good good fill: But there are things indifferent, Which we may neither hate nor love, But one and then another prove, As we shall find our fancy bent.
And though each fpring do add to love new heat, As princes do in times of action get
New taxes, and remit them rot in peace, No winter fhall abate this spring's increases
LOVE! any devil elfe but you
Would for a giv`n foul give fomething too
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