LOVE'S DIET.

To what a cumbersome unwieldiness

And burthenous corpulence my love had grown; But that I did, to make it less,

And keep it in proportion,

Give it a diet, made it feed upon,
That which love worst endures, discretion.

Above one sigh a-day I allow'd him not,

Of which my fortune and my faults had part;
And if sometimes by stealth he got
A she-sigh from my mistress' heart,
And thought to feast on that, I let him see
"T was neither very sound, nor meant to me.
If he wrung from me a tear, I brin'd it so
With scorn or shame, that him it nourish'd not;
If he suck'd her's, I let him know
"I was not a tear which he had got.
His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;
Her eyes, which roll towards all, weep not, but sweat.

Whatever she would dictate, I writ that,
But burnt my letters, which she writ to me;
And if that favour made him fat,
I said, "If any title be

Convey'd by this, ah! what doth it avail
To be the fortieth man in an entail?"

Thus I reclaim'd my buzzard love to fly

At what, and when, and how, and where I chose ; Now negligent of sport I lie,

And now, as other falc'ners use,

I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep, And the game kill'd, or lost, go talk or sleep.

I give my reputation to those

Which were my friends; mine industry to foes:
To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness;
My sickness to physicians, or excess;

To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ;
And to my company my wit.
Thou, Love, by making me adore
Her, who begot this love in me before,
Taught'st me to make, as though I gave, when I do
but restore.

To him, for whom the passing-bell next tolls,
I give my physic books; my written rolls
Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give:
My brazen medals, unto them which live
In want of bread; to them, which pass among
All foreigners, mine English tongue.
Thou, Love, by making me love one,
Who thinks her friendship a fit portion
For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus dispropor-
tion.

Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo
The world by dying; because Love dies too.
Then all your beauties will be no more worth
Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth ;
And all your graces no more use shall have,
Than a sun-dial in a grave.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me
Love her, who doth neglect both me and thee,
T' invent and practise this one way, t'annihilate all
three.

THE WILL.

BEFORE I sign my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies; I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;
If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;
My tongue to Fame; t'ambassadors mine ears;
To women, or the sea, my tears;
Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore
By making me love her who 'd twenty more,
That I should give to none, but such as had too
much before.

My constancy I to the planets give;

My truth to them who at the court do live;
Mine ingenuity and openness

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;
My silence t' any who abroad have been;

My money to a capuchin.

Thou, Love, taugh'st me, by appointing me To love there, where no love receiv'd can be, Only to give to such as have no good capacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics;
All my good works unto the schismatics
Of Amsterdam; my best civility

And courtship to an university:

My modesty I give to soldiers bare.

My patience let gamesters share. Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me Love her, that holds my love disparity, Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

Little think'st thou (poor heart,
That labourest yet to nestle thee,
And think'st by hovering here to get a part
In a forbidden or forbidding tree,

And hop'st her stiffness by long siege to bow:)
Little think'st thou,

That thou to morrow, ere the Sun doth wake,
Must with this Sun and me a journey take.

But thou, which lov'st to be

Subtle to plague thyself, will say,

"Alas! if you must go, what's that to me? Here lies my business, and here I will stay: You go to friends, whose love and means present

Be more than woman, she would get above All thought of sex, and think to move

My heart to study her, and not to love;

Both these were monsters; since there must reside Falsehood in woman, I could more abide,

She were by art than Nature falsify'd.

Live, primrose, then, and thrive
With thy true number five;

And women, whom this flower doth represent,
With this mysterious number be content;
Ten is the furthest number, if half ten

Belongs unto each woman, then

Each woman may take half us men :. Or if this will not serve their turn, since all Numbers are odd or even, since they fall First into five, women may take us all.

THE RELIQUE.

WHEN my grave is broke up again
Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learn'd that woman-head,
To be to more than one a bed)

And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will he not let us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies?
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls, at the last busy day,
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

If this fall in a time, or land,

Where mass-devotion doth command, Then he that digs us up, will bring Us to the bishop, or the king, To make us reliques; then Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I A something else thereby;

All women shall adore us, and some men; And since at such time miracles are sought, I would have that age by this paper taught What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First we lov'd well and faithfully,
Yet knew not what we lov'd, nor why;
Diff'rence of sex we never knew,

No more than guardian angels do;
Coming and going we

Perchance might kiss, but yet between those meals
Our hands ne'er touch'd the seals,
Which Nature, injur'd by late law, set free:
These miracles we did; but now, alas!
All measure and all language I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was.

THE DAMP.

WHEN I am dead, and doctors know not why,
And my friends' curiosity

Will have me cut up, to survey each part,
And they shall find your picture in mine heart;
You think a sudden damp of love
Will through all their senses move,
And work on them as me, and so prefer
Your murder to the name of massacre.

Poor victories! but if you dare be brave,

And pleasure in the conquest have, First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain, And let th' enchantress Honour next be slain; And like a Goth or Vandal rise, Deface records and histories Of your own acts and triumphs over men: And without such advantage kill me then.

For I could muster up, as well as you,

My giants and my witches too, Which are vast Constancy, and Secretness, But these I neither look for nor profess. Kill me as woman; let me die

As a mere man; do you but try

Your passive valour, and you shall find then Naked you 've odds enough of any man.

THE DISSOLUTION.

SHE 's dead, and all, which die, To their first elements resolve; And we were mutual elements to us, And made of one another.

My body then doth her's involve,

And those things, whereof I consist, hereby
In me abundant grow and burthenous,
And nourish not, but smother.
My fire of passion, sighs of air,
Water of tears, and earthy sad despair,
Which my materials be,

(But near worn out by love's security)
She, to my loss, doth by her death repair;
And I might live long wretched so,
But that my fire doth with my fuel grow.
Now as those active kings,

Whose foreign conquest treasure brings,
Receive more, and spend more, and soonest break,
This (which I'm amaz'd that I can speak)
This death hath with my store

My use increas'd.

Take heed of hating me,

Or too much triumph in the victory;
Not that I shall be mine own officer,
And hate with hate again retaliate:
But thou wilt lose the style of conqueror,
If I, thy conquest, perish by thy hate:
Then, lest my being nothing lessen thee,
If thou hate me, take heed of hating me.

Yet love and hate me too,

So these extremes shall ne'er their office do;
Love me, that I may die the gentler way:
Hate me, because thy love 's too great for me:
Or let these two themselves, not mẽ, decay;
So shall I live thy stage, not triumph be:
Then lest thy love thou hate, and me undo,
O let me live, yet love and hate me too.

THE EXPIRATION.

So, go break off this last lamenting kiss,

1

Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away. Turn thou, ghost, that way, and let me turn this, And let ourselves benight our happiest day; As ask none leave to love; nor will we owe Any so cheap a death, as saying, Go; Go; and if that word have not quite kill'd thee, Ease me with death, by bidding me go too. Or if it have, let my word work on me, And a just office on a murd'rer do. Except it be too late to kill me so,

Being double dead, going, and bidding, Go.

THE COMPUTATION.

FROM my first twenty years, since yesterday,
I scarce believ'd thou could'st be gone away,
[last.
For forty more I fed on favours past,
And forty on hopes, that thou would'st they might
Tears drown'd one hundred, and sighs blew out two;
A thousand I did neither think, nor do,
Or not divide, all being one thought of you:
Or in a thousand more forgot that too.
Yet call not this long life; but think, that I
Am, by being dead, immortal: can ghosts die?

THE PARADOX.

No lover saith, I love, nor any other
Can judge a perfect lover;

He thinks that else none can or will agree,
That any loves but he:

I cannot say I lov'd, for who can say

He was kill'd yesterday:

Love with excess of heat more young than old;
Death kills with too much cold;

We die but once, and who lov'd last did die,
He that, saith twice, doth lie:

For though he seem to move, and stir awhile,
It doth the sense beguile.

Such life is like the light, which bideth yet,
When the life's light is set;

Or like the heat, which fire in solid matter
Leaves behind two hours after.
Once I lov'd and dy'd; and am now become
Mine epitaph and tomb.

Here dead men speak their last, and so do I;
Love-slain, lo, here I die.

STAND Still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, love, in love's philosophy.

These three hours, that we have spent
Walking here, to shadows went

Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd;
But now the Sun is just above our head,

We do those shadows tread :

And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd, So whilst our infant loves did grow, Disguises did and shadows flow

From us and our cares: but now 't is not so.

That love hath not attain'd the high'st degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see;
Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others; these, which come behind,
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our love's faint, and westwardly decline;
To me thou falsely thine,

And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day:
But oh! love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light;
And his short minute, after noon, is night.

NIOBE.

By children's birth and death I am become So dry, that I am now mine own sad tomb.

A BURNT SHIP.

OUT of a fired ship, which by no way

But drowning could be rescu'd from the flame,
Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came
Near the foe's ships, did by their shot decay:
So all were lost which in the ship were found,
They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship
drown'd.

FALL OF A WALL.

UNDER an under-min'd and shot-bruis'd wall,
A too bold captain perish'd by the fall,
Whose brave misfortune happiest men envy'd,
That had a tower for tomb his bones to hide.

A LAME BEGGAR.

"I AM unable," yonder beggar cries, "To stand or move;" if he say true, he lies.

A SELF-ACCUSER.

YOUR mistress, that you follow whores, still taxeth you;

'Tis strange, that she should thus confess it, though't be true.

A LICENTIOUS PERSON.

THY sins and hairs may no man equal call; For as thy sins increase, thy hairs do fall.

ANTIQUARY.

IF in his study he hath so much care
To hang all old strange things, let his wife beware.

DISINHERITED.

THY father all from thee, by his last will, Gave to the poor; thou hast good title still.