Or say, that now We are not just those persons, which we were? Of Love and his wrath, any may forswear? Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose? For having purpos'd change and falsehood, you Dispute, and conquer, if I would; For by to morrow I may think so too. Busy old fool, umruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows and through curtains, look on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Sawcy pedantic wretch, go, chide Late school-boys, or sour 'prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen, that the king will ride, Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams, so reverend and strong, Dost thou not think I could eclipse, and cloud them with a wink, She's all states, and all princes I, Princes do but play us; compar'd to this, In that the world 's contracted thus. THE UNDERTAKING. I HAVE done one braver thing, And yet a braver thence doth spring, It were but madness now t' impart When he, which can have learn'd the art So, if I now should utter this, Such stuff, to work upon, there is) Be he, who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes; For he, who colour loves and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes. If, as I have, you also do Virtue in woman see, And dare love that, and say so too, And forget the he and she; And if this love, though placed so, From profane men you hide, Which will no faith on this bestow, Or, if they do, deride: Then you have done a braver thing, " I THE INDIFFERENT. CAN love both fair and brown; Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want [plays betrays; Her who loves loneness best, and her who sports and Her whom the country form'd, and whom the town; Her who believes, and her who tries; Her who still weeps with spungy eyes, And her who is dry cork, and never cries; I can love her, and her, and you, and you, I can love any, so she be not true. Will no other vice content you? Will it not serve your turn to do, as did your mothers? Or have you all old vices worn, and now would find " out others? Or doth a fear, that men are true, torment you? Let me; and do you twenty know. Venus heard me sing this song, And by love's sweetest sweet, variety, she swore, Which think to stablish dangerous constancy, LOVE'S USURY. For every hour that thou wilt spare me now, Usurious god of love, twenty to thee, Let me think any rival's letter mine, Keep midnight's promise; mistake by the way This bargain's good; if, when I' am old, I be Inflam'd by thee, If thine own honour, or my shame, or pain, CANONIZATION. THE TRIPLE FOOL. I AM two fools, I know,' In whining poetry; But where 's that wise man, that would not be I, Then as th' Earth's inward narrow crooked lanes I thought, if I could draw my pains Some man, his art or voice to show, And, by delighting many, frees again For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me Alas, alas! who's injur'd by my love? What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd? Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still Call's what you will, we are made such by love; W' are tapers too, and at our own cost die; By us, we two being one, are it: We can die by it, if not live by love. And if unfit for tomb or hearse LOVER'S INFINITENESS. Ir yet I have not all thy love, I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move; Than at the bargain made was meant: If then thy gift of love was partial, That some for me, some should to others fall, Dear, I shall never have it all. Or, if then thou giv'st me all, All was but all, which thou hadst then: But if in thy heart since there be, or shall K Yet, I would not have all yet, I can remember yet, that I Something did say, and something did bestow; I heard me say, tell her anon, I bid me send my heart, when I was gone, [lie, When I had ripp'd, and search'd where hearts should Yet I found something like a heart, It was not good, it was not bad, It was entire to none, and few had part: It seem'd, and therefore for our loss be sad, A FEVER. On do not die, for I shall hate All women so, when thou art gone, That thee I shall not celebrate, When I remember thou wast 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 soul, goest, It stay, 't is but thy carcass then, 'The fairest woman, but thy ghost; But corrupt worms, the worthiest men. O wrangling schools, that search what fire Shall burn this world, had none the wit Unto this knowledge to aspire, 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, These burning fits but meteors be, Yet 't was of my mind, seizing thee, For I had rather owner be Of thee one hour, than all else ever. THE LEGACY. WHEN last I dy'd (and, dear, I die AIR AND ANGELS. TWICE or thrice had I lov'd thee, Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing did I see; But since my soul, whose child love is, Love must not be, but take a body too; And fix itself in thy lips, eyes, and brow. Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought, Is much too much, some fitter must be sought; Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear, As is 'twixt air and angel's purity, 'Twixt women's love, and men's will ever be. And then we shall be throughly bless'd: But now no more than all the rest. Here upon Earth we' are kings, and none but we Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be; Who is so safe as we? where none can do Treason to us, except one of us two. True and false fears let us refrain: Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Till my return, repair And recompact my scatter'd body so, When those stars had supremacy, So since this name was cut, When love and grief their exaltation had, No door 'gainst this name's influence shut; 'T will make thee; and thou should'st, till I return, Since I die daily, daily mourn. When thy inconsiderate hand Flings ope this casement, with my trembling name, To look on one, whose wit or land New battery to thy heart may frame, And when thy melted maid, And if this treason go To an overt act, and that thou write again; So in forgetting thou remembrest right, And unaware to me shalt write. But glass and lines must be No means our firm substantial love to keep; For dying men talk often so. TWICKNAM GÅRDEN. BLASTED with sighs, and surrounded with tears, The spider love, which transubstantiates all, 'T were wholesomer for me, that winter did These trees to laugh, and mock me to my face; Hither with crystal phials, lovers, come, And take my tears, which are love's wine, And try your mistress' tears at home, For all are false, that taste not just like mine; Alas! hearts do not in eyes shine, Nor can you more judge woman's thoughts by tears, O perverse sex, where none is true but she, VALEDICTION TO HIS BOOK. I'LL tell thee now (dear love) what thou shalt do To anger destiny, as she doth us; How I shall stay, though she eloigne me thus, And how posterity shall know it too; How thine may out-endure Sibyl's glory, and obscure Her, who from Pindar could allure, And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame, And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find and name. Study our manuscripts, those myriads Of letters, which have past 'twixt thee and me, Thence write our annals, and in them will be To all, whom love's subliming fire invades, Rule and example found; There, the faith of any ground No schismatic will dare to wound, That sees, how love this grace to us affords, To make, to keep, to use, to be, these his records. This book, as long liv'd as the elements, Or as the world's form, this all-graved tomb, We for love's clergy only' are instruments; Vandals and Goths invade us, Learning were safe in this our universe, [verse. Schools might learn sciences, spheres music, angels Here love's divine (since all divinity Is love or wonder) may find all they seek, Whether abstracted spiritual love they like, Their souls exhal'd with what they do not see; Or loath so to amuse Faith's infirmities, they chuse Something, which they may see and use; For though mind be the Heaven, where love doth Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it. [sit, Here more than in their books may lawyers find, Forsake him, who on them relies, Here statesmen, (or of them they which can read) Who the present govern well, Whose weakness none doth or dares tell; In this thy book such will there something see, As in the Bible some can find out alchymy. |