Or say, that now

We are not just those persons, which we were?
Or, that oaths, made in reverential fear

Of Love and his wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,

Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?
Or, your own end to justify

For having purpos'd change and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true?
Vain lunatic, against these scapes I could

Dispute, and conquer, if I would;
Which I abstain to doe,

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,
Call country ants to harvest offices;

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,
But that I would not lose her sight so long?
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left them, or lie here with me;
Ask for those kings, whom thou saw'st yesterday,"
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

She's all states, and all princes I,
Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compar'd to this,
All honour's mimic; all wealth alchymy;
Thou Sun art half as happy' as we,

In that the world 's contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that 's done in warming us,
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.

THE UNDERTAKING.

I HAVE done one braver thing,
Than all the worthies did;

And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now t' impart
The skill of specular stone,

When he, which can have learn'd the art
To cut it, can find none.

So, if I now should utter this,
Others (because no more

Such stuff, to work upon, there is)
Would love but as before.

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,
Than all the worthies did,
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.

" 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?
Oh, we are not, be not you so;

Let me; and do you twenty know.
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go ;
Must I, who came to travail thorough you,
Grow your fix'd subject, because you are true ?”

Venus heard me sing this song,

And by love's sweetest sweet, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; it should be so no more.
She went, examin'd, and return'd ere long,
And said, "Alas! some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,

Which think to stablish dangerous constancy,
But I have told them, since you will be true,
You shall be true to them, who 're false to you.”

LOVE'S USURY.

For every hour that thou wilt spare me now,
I will allow,

Usurious god of love, twenty to thee,
When with my brown my grey hairs equal be;
Till then, Love, let my body range, and let
Me travail, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget,
Resume my last years' relict: think that yet
We' bad 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 grass to comfitures of court,
Or city's quelque-choses, let not report
My mind transport.

This bargain's good; if, when I' am old, I be

Inflam'd by thee,

If thine own honour, or my shame, or pain,
Thou covet most, at that age thou shalt gain;
Do thy will then, then subject and degree,
And fruit of love, Love, I submit to thee;
Spare me till then, I'll bear it, though she be
One that loves me.

CANONIZATION.

THE TRIPLE FOOL.

I AM two fools, I know,'
For loving, and for saying so

In whining poetry;

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five grey hairs, or ruin'd fortunes flout;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his honour or his grace,
Or the king's real or his stampted face
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.

Alas, alas! who's injur'd by my love?

What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats, which my reins fill,
Add one more to the plaguy bill?

Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, whom quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.

Call's what you will, we are made such by love;
Call her one, me another fly;

W' are tapers too, and at our own cost die;
And we in us find th' eagle and the dove;
The phenix riddle hath more wit

By us, we two being one, are it:
So to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love.

And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
VOL V.

LOVER'S INFINITENESS.

Ir yet I have not all thy love,
Dear, I shall never have it all,

I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move;
Nor can entreat one other tear to fall;
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent ;
Yet no more can be due to me,

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
New love created be by other men,
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
In sighs, in oaths, 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 shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.

K

Yet, I would not have all yet,
He that hath all can have no more,
And since my love doth every day admit [store;
New growth, thou should'st have new rewards in
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,"
If thou canst give it, then thou never gav'st it;
Lovers riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing sav'st it:
But we will love a way more liberal,
Than changing hearts, to join us, so we shall
Be one, and one another's all.

I can remember yet, that I

Something did say, and something did bestow;
Though I be dead, which sent me, I might be
Mine own executor, and legacy.

I heard me say, tell her anon,
That myself, that is you, not I,
Did kill me, and when I felt me die,

I bid me send my heart, when I was gone,
But I, alas! could find there none.

[lie,

When I had ripp'd, and search'd where hearts should
It kill'd me again, that I, who still was true
In life, in my last will should cozen you.

Yet I found something 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 seem'd, and therefore for our loss be sad,
I meant to send that heart instead of mine,
But oh! no man could hold it, for 't was thine.

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,
To fuel such a fever long.

These burning fits but meteors be,
Whose matter in thee soon is spent.
Thy beauty, and all parts, which are thee,
Are an unchangeable firmament.

Yet 't was of my mind, seizing thee,
Though it in thee cannot persever;

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
As often as from thee I go,
Though it be but an hour ago,
And lovers' hours be full eternity)

AIR AND ANGELS.

TWICE or thrice had I lov'd thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,
Angels affect us oft, and worship'd be:

Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing did I see;

But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtile than the parent is,

Love must not be, but take a body too;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid love ask, and now,
That it assume thy body, I allow,

And fix itself in thy lips, eyes, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,
And so more steadily t' have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration
I saw, I had Love's pinnace overfraught;
Thy every hair for love to work upon

Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
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 sphere;
Just such disparity

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
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore, this is the second of our reign.

Till my return, repair

And recompact my scatter'd body so,
As all the virtuous powers, which are
Fix'd in the stars, are said to flow
Into such characters as graved be,

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;
As much more loving, as more sad,

'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,
Then think this name alive, and that thou thus
In it offend'st my genius.

And when thy melted maid,
Corrupted by thy lover's gold or page,
His letter at thy pillow' hath laid,
Dispute thou it, and tame thy rage.
If thou to him begin'st to thaw for this,
May my name step in, and hide his,

And if this treason go

To an overt act, and that thou write again;
In superscribing, my name flow
Into thy fancy from the pen,

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;
Near death inflicts this lethargy,
And thus I murmur in my sleep;
Impute this idle talk to that I go,

For dying men talk often so.

TWICKNAM GÅRDEN.

BLASTED with sighs, and surrounded with tears,
Hither I come to seek the spring,
And at mine eyes, and at mine ears
Receive such balm as else cures every thing:
But O, self-traitor, I do bring

The spider love, which transubstantiates all,
And can convert manna to gall,
And that this place may thoroughly be thought
True Paradise, I have the serpent brought,

'T were wholesomer for me, that winter did
Benight the glory of this place,
And that a grave frost did forbid

These trees to laugh, and mock me to my face;
But since I cannot this disgrace
Endure, nor leave this garden, Love, let me
Some senseless 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 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,
Than by her shadow, what she wears.

O perverse sex, where none is true but she,
Who's therefore true, because her truth kills me.

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,
In cipher writ, or new made idiom;

We for love's clergy only' are instruments;
When this book is made thus,
Should again the ravenous

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,
Both by what titles mistresses are ours,
And how prerogative these states devours,
Transferr'd from Love himself to womankind:
Who, though from heart and eyes
They exact great subsidies,

Forsake him, who on them relies,
And for the cause honour or conscience give;
Chimeras, vain as they, or their prerogative.

Here statesmen, (or of them they which can read)
May of their occupation find the grounds,
Love and their art alike it deadly wounds,
If to consider, what 't is, one proceed,
In both they do excel,

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.