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THE PRINTER TO THE UNDERSTANDERS

FOR this time I must speake only to you: at another,

Readers may perchance serve my turne; and I thinke this a way very free from exception, in hope that very few will have a minde to confesse themselves ignorant.

If you looke for an Epistle, as you have before ordinary publications, I am sory that I must deceive you; but you will not lay it to my charge, when you shall consider that this is not ordinary, for if I should say it were the best in this kinde, that ever this Kingdome hath yet seene; he that would doubt of it must goe out of the Kingdome to enforme himselfe, for the best judgments, within it, take it for granted.

You may imagine (if it please you) that I could endeare it unto you, by saying, that importunity drew it on; that had it not beene presented here, it would have come to us from beyond the Seas; (which perhaps is true enough,) That my charge and paines in procuring of it hath beene such, and such. I could adde hereto, a promise of more correctnesse, or enlargement in the next Edition, if you shall in the meane time content you with this. But these things are so common, as that I should profane this Peece by applying them to it; A Peece which who so takes not as he findes it, in what manner soever, he is unworthy of it, sith a scattered limbe of this Author, hath more amiablenesse in it, in the eye of a discerner, then a whole body of some other; Or, (to expresse him best by himselfe)

In the Storme.

— A hand, or eye,

By Hilyard drawne, is worth a history
By a worse Painter made; —

If any man (thinking I speake this to enflame him for the vent of the Impression) be of another opinion, I shall as willingly spare his money as his judgement. I cannot lose so much by him as hee will by himselfe. For I shall satisfie my selfe with the conscience of well doing, in making so much good common.

Howsoever it may appeare to you, it shall suffice mee to enforme you, that it hath the best warrant that can bee, publique authority, and private friends.

There is one thing more wherein I will make you of my counsell, and that is, That whereas it hath pleased some, who had studyed and did admire him, to offer to the memory of the Author, not long after his decease, I have thought I should do you service in presenting them unto you now; onely whereas, had I placed them in the beginning, they might have serv’d for so many Encomiums of the Author (as is usuall in other workes, where perhaps there is need of it, to prepare men to digest such stuffe as follows after,) you shall here finde them in the end, for whosoever reades the rest so farre, shall perceive that there is no occasion to use them to that purpose; yet there they are, as an attestation for their sakes that knew not so much before, to let them see how much honour was attributed to this worthy man, by those that are capable to give it.

Farewell.

Hexastichon Bibliopolae

I SEE in his last preach’d, and printed Booke,

His Picture in a sheet; in Pauls I looke,

And see his Statue in a sheete of stone,

And sure his body in the grave hath one:

Those sheetes present him dead, these if you buy,

You have him living to Eternity.

Jo. Mar.

Hexastichon ad Bibliopolam

Incerti.

I N thy Impression of Donnes Poems rare,

For his Eternitie thou hast ta’ne care:

«Twas well, and pious; And for ever may

He live: Yet shew I thee a better way;

Print but his Sermons, and if those we buy,

He, We, and Thou shall live t’ Eternity.

Hexastichon ad Bibliopolam.

1635—69

Dedication to the Edition of 1650 To the Right Honourable

William Lord Craven Baron of

Hamsted-Marsham.

My Lord,

ANY of these Poems have, for severall impressions, wandred up and down trusting (as well they might) upon the Authors reputation; neither do they now complain of any injury but what may proceed either from the kindnesse of the Printer, or the curtesie of the Reader; the one by adding something too much, lest any spark of this sacred fire might perish undiscerned, the other by putting such an estimation upon the wit & fancy they find here, that they are content to use it as their own: as if a man should dig out the stones of a royall Amphitheatre to build a stage for a countrey show. Amongst all the monsters this unlucky age has teemed with, I finde none so prodigious, as the Poets of these later times, wherein men as if they would level understandings too as well as estates, acknowledging no inequality of parts and Judgements, pretend as indifferently to the chaire of wit as to the Pulpit, & conceive themselves no lesse inspired with the spirit of Poetry then with that of Religion: so it is not onely the noise of Drums and Trumpets which have drowned the Muses harmony, or the feare that the Churches ruine wil destroy their Priests likewise, that now frights them from this Countrey, where they have been so ingenuously received, but these rude pretenders to excellencies they unjustly own who profanely rushing into Minervaes Temple, with noysome Ayres blast the lawrell [page 5] wch thunder cannot hurt. In this sad condition these learned sisters are fled over to beg your Lps. protection, who have been so certain a patron both to arts and armes, and who in this generall confusion have so intirely preserved your Honour, that in your Lordship we may still read a most perfect character of what England was in all her pompe and greatnesse, so that although these poems were formerly written upon severall occasions, and to severall persons, they now unite themselves, and are become one pyramid to set your Lordships statue upon, where you may stand like Armed Apollo the defendor of the Muses, encouraging the Poets now alive to celebrate your great Acts by affording your countenance to his poems that wanted onely so noble a subject.

My Lord,

Your most humble servant

John Donne.

To John Donne

DONNE, the delight of Phoebus, and each Muse,

Who, to thy one, all other braines refuse;

Whose every work, of thy most early wit,

Came forth example, and remaines so, yet:

Longer a knowing, than most wits doe live;

And which no’n affection praise enough can give!

To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,

Which might with halfe mankind maintain a strife;

All which I mean to praise, and, yet, I would; B

ut leave, because I cannot as I should!

B. Jons.

To John Donne.

1650—69

To Lucy, Countesse of Bedford, with M. Donnes Satyres

LVCY, you brightnesse of our Spheare, who are

Life of the Muses day, their morning Starre!

If works (not th’Authors) their own grace should look

Whose poems would not wish to be your book?

But these, desir’d by you, the makers ends

Crown with their own.

Rare Poems ask rare friends. Yet,

Satyres, since the most of mankind bee

Their unavoided subject, fewest see:

For none ere took that pleasure in sins sense,

But, when they heard it tax’d, took more offence.

They, then, that living where the matter is bred,

Dare for these Poems, yet, both ask, and read,

And like them too; must needfully, though few,

Be of the best: and ’mongst those best are you;

Lucy, you brightnefle of our Spheare, who are

The Muses evening, as their morning-Starre.

B. Jon.

To John Donne

WHO shall doubt, Donne, where I a Poet bee,

When I dare send my Epigrammes to thee?

That so alone canst judge, so’alone do’st make:

And, in thy censures, evenly, dost take

As free simplicity, to dis-avow,

As thou hast best authority, t’allow.

Read all I send: and, if I finde but one

Mark’d by thy hand, and with the better stone,

My title’s seal’d. Those that for claps doe write,

Let punees, porters, players praise delight,

And, till they burst, their backs, like asses load:

A man should seek great glory, and not broad.

B. Jon.

To Lucy &c. To John Donne.

1650—69

JOHN DONNE
ANNO DNI. 1591

ÆTATIS SVÆ. 18. ANTES MVERTO QUE MVDADO

This was for youth, Strength,

Mirth, and wit that Time

Most count their golden Age; but t’was not thine.

Thine was thy later yeares, so much refind

From youths Drosse, Mirth, & wit; as thy pure mind

Thought (like the Angels) nothing but the Praise

Of thy Creator, in those last, best Dayes.

Witnes this Booke, (thy Embleme) which begins

With Love; but endes, with Sighes, & Teares for sins. iz: wa:

Will: Marshall sculpsit

Songs and Sonnets

The good-morrow

I WONDER by my troth, what thou, and

I Did, till we lov’d? were we not wean’d till then?

But suck’d on countrey pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den?

T’was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desir’d, and got, t’was but a dreame of thee.

And now good morrow to our waking soules,

Which watch not one another out of feare;

For love, all love of other sights controules,

And makes one little roome, an every where.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne,

Let us possesse one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,

And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,

Where can we finde two better hemispheares

Without sharpe North, without declining West?

What ever dyes, was not mixt equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.

Song

GOE, and catche a falling starre,

Get with child a mandrake roote,

Tell me, where all past yeares are,

Or who cleft the Divels foot,

Teach me to heare Mermaides singing,

Or to keep off envies stinging,

And finde

What winde

Serves to advance an honest minde.

If thou beest borne to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand daies and nights,

Till age snow white haires on thee,

Thou, when thou retorn’st, wilt tell mee

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And sweare

No where

Lives a woman true, and faire.

If thou findst one, let mee know,

Such a Pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet doe not, I would not goe,

Though at next doore wee might meet,

Though shee were true, when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

Yet shee

Will bee

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Womans Сonstancy

NOW thou hast lov’d me one whole day,

To morrow when thou leav’st, what wilt thou say?

Wilt thou then Antedate some new made vow?

Or say that now

We are not just those persons, which we were?

Or, that oathes made in reverentiall feare

Of Love, and his wrath, any may forsweare?

Or, as true deaths, true maryages untie,

So lovers contracts, images of those,

Binde but till sleep, deaths image, them unloose?

Or, your owne end to Justifie,

For having purpos’d change, and falsehood; you

Can have no way but falsehood to be true?

Vaine lunatique, against these scapes I could

Dispute, and conquer, if I would,

Which I abstaine to doe,

For by to morrow, I may thinke so too.

Womans constancy.

The undertaking

I HAVE done one braver thing

Then all the Worthies did,

And yet a braver thence doth spring,

Which is, to keepe that hid.

5It were but madnes now t’impart

The skill of specular stone,

When he which can have learn’d the art

To cut it, can finde none.

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

Such stuffe to worke upon, there is,)

Would love but as before.

But he who lovelinesse within

Hath found, all outward loathes,

For he who colour loves, and skinne,

Loves but their oldest clothes.

If, as I have, you also doe

Vertue’attir’d in woman see,

And dare love that, and say so too,

And forget the Hee and Shee;

And if this love, though placed so,

From prophane men you hide,

Which will no faith on this bestow,

Or, if they doe, deride:

Then you have done a braver thing

Then all the Worthies did;

And a braver thence will spring,

Which is, to keepe that hid.

The undertaking.

The Sunne Rising

BUSIE old foole, unruly Sunne,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?

Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide

Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices,

Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,

Call countrey ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme,

Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time.

Thy beames, so reverend, and strong

Why shouldst thou thinke?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke,

But that I would not lose her sight so long:

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Looke, and to morrow late, tell mee,

Whether both the’India’s of spice and Myne

Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee.

Aske for those Kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,

And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay.

She’is all States, and all Princes,

I, Nothing else is.

Princes doe but play us; compar’d to this,

All honor’s mimique;

All wealth alchimie.

Thou sunne art halfe as happy’as wee,

In that the world’s contracted thus;

Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee

To warme the world, that’s done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art every where;

This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

The Indifferent

I CAN love both faire and browne,

Her whom abundance melts, a

Аnd her whom want betraies,

Her who loves lonenesse best,

Аnd her who maskes and plaies,

Her whom the country form’d,

Аnd whom the town,

Her who beleeves, and her who tries,

Her who still weepes with spungie eyes,

And her who is dry corke, 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?

Wil it not serve your turn to do, as did your mothers?

Or have you all old vices spent,

Аnd now would finde out others?

Or doth a feare, that men are true, torment you?

Oh we are not, be not you so,

Let mee, and doe you, twenty know.

Rob mee, but binde me not, and let me goe.

Must I, who came to travaile thorow you,

Grow your fixt subject, because you are true?

Venus heard me sigh this song,

And by Loves sweetest Part, Variety, she swore,

She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.

She went, examin’d, and return’d ere long,

And said, alas, Some two or three

Poore Heretiques in love there bee,

Which thinke to stablish dangerous constancie.

But I have told them, since you will be true,

You shall be true to them, who’are false to you.

Loves Vsury

FOR every houre that thou wilt spare mee now,

I will allow, Usurious God of Love, twenty to thee,

When with my browne, my gray haires equall bee;

Till then, Love, let my body raigne, and let

Mee travell, sojourne, snatch, plot, have, forget,

Resume my last yeares relict: thinke that yet

We’had never met.

Let mee thinke any rivalls letter mine,

And at next nine

Keepe midnights promise; mistake by the way

The maid, and tell the Lady of that delay;

Onely let mee love none, no, not the sport;

From country grasse, to comfitures of Court,

Or cities quelque choses, let report

My minde transport.

This bargaine’s good; if when I’am old, I bee

Inflam’d by thee,

If thine owne honour, or my shame, or paine,

Thou covet most, at that age thou shalt gaine.

Doe thy will then, then subject and degree,

And fruit of love,

Love I submit to thee,

Spare mee till then,

I’ll beare it, though she bee

One that loves mee.

The Canonization

FOR Godsake hold your tongue, and let me love,

Or chide my palsie, or my gout,

My five gray haires, or ruin’d fortune flout,

With wealth your state, your minde with Arts improve,

Take you a course, get you a place,

Observe his honour, or his grace,

Or the Kings reall, or his stamped face

Contemplate, what you will, approve,

So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who’s injur’d by my love?

What merchants ships have my sighs drown’d?

Who saies my teares have overflow’d his ground?

When did my colds a forward spring remove?

When did the heats which my veines fill

Adde one more to the plaguie Bill?

Soldiers finde warres, and Lawyers finde out still

Litigious men, which quarrels move,

Though she and I do love.

Call us what you will, wee are made such by love;

Call her one, mee another flye,

We’are Tapers too, and at our owne cost die,

And wee in us finde the’Eagle and the Dove.

The Phœnix ridle hath more wit

By us, we two being one, are it.

So to one neutrall thing both sexes fit,

Wee dye and rise the same, and prove

Mysterious by this love.

Wee can dye by it, if not live by love,

And if unfit for tombes and hearse

Our legend bee, it will be fit for verse;

And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove,

We’ll build in sonnets pretty roomes;

As well a well wrought urne becomes

The greatest ashes, as halfe-acre tombes,

And by these hymnes, all shall approve

Us Canoniz’d for Love:

And thus invoke us;

You whom reverend love

Made one anothers hermitage;

You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;

Who did the whole worlds soule contract, and drove

Into the glasses of your eyes

(So made such mirrors, and such spies,

That they did all to you epitomize,)

Countries, Townes, Courts: Beg from above

A patterne of your love!

The triple Foole

I AM two fooles, I know,

For loving, and for saying so

In whining Poëtry;

But where’s that wiseman, that would not be I,

If she would not deny?

Then as th’earths inward narrow crooked lanes

Do purge sea waters fretfull salt away,

I thought, if I could draw my paines,

Through Rimes vexation,

I should them allay,

Griefe brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,

For, he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

But when I have done so,

Some man, his art and voice to show,

Doth Set and sing my paine,

And, by delighting many, frees againe

Griefe, which verse did restraine.

To Love, and Griefe tribute of Verse belongs,

But not of such as pleases when’tis read,

Both are increased by such songs:

For both their triumphs so are published,

And I, which was two fooles, do so grow three;

Who are a little wise, the best fooles bee.

Lovers infinitenesse

I F yet I have not all thy love,

Deare, I shall never have it all,

I cannot breath one other sigh, to move,

Nor can intreat one other teare to fall,

And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,

Sighs, teares, and oathes, and letters I have spent.

Yet no more can be due to mee,

Then at the bargaine made was ment,

If then thy gift of love were partiall,

That some to mee, some should to others fall,

Deare, I shall never have Thee All.

Or if then thou gavest mee all,

All was but All, which thou hadst then;

But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall,

New love created bee, by other men,

Which have their stocks intire, and can in teares,

In sighs, in oathes, and letters outbid mee,

This new love may beget new feares,

For, this love was not vowed by thee.

And yet it was, thy gift being generall,

The ground, thy heart is mine, what ever shall

Grow there, deare, I should have it all.

Yet I would not have all yet,

Hee that hath all can have no more,

And since my love doth every day admit

New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store;

Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,

If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it:

Loves riddles are, that though thy heart depart,

It stayes at home, and thou with losing savest it:

But wee will have a way more liberall,

Then changing hearts, to joyne them, so wee shall

Be one, and one anothers All.

Song

S WEETEST love, I do not goe,

For wearinesse of thee,

Nor in hope the world can show

A fitter Love for mee;

But since that I

Must dye at last, ’tis best,

To use my selfe in jest

Thus by fain’d deaths to dye;

Yesternight the Sunne went hence,

And yet is here to day,

He hath no desire nor sense,

Nor halfe so short a way:

Then feare not mee,

But beleeve that I shall make

Speedier journeyes, since I take

More wings and spurres then hee.

O how feeble is mans power,

That if good fortune fall,

Cannot adde another houre,

Nor a lost houre recall!

But come bad chance,

And wee joyne to’it our strength,

And wee teach it art and length,

It selfe o’r us to’advance.

When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not winde,

But sigh’st my soule away,

When thou weep’st, unkindly kinde,

My lifes blood doth decay. It cannot bee

That thou lov’st mee, as thou say’st,

If in thine my life thou waste,

Thou art the best of mee.

Let not thy divining heart

Forethinke me any ill,

Destiny may take thy part,

And may thy feares fulfill;

But thinke that wee

Are but turn’d aside to sleepe;

They who one another keepe

Alive, ne’r parted bee.

The Legacie

WHEN I dyed last, and, Deare, I dye

As often as from thee I goe,

Though it be but an houre agoe,

And Lovers houres be full eternity,

I can remember yet, that I

Something did say, and something did bestow;

Though I be dead, which sent mee, I should be

Mine owne executor and Legacie.

I heard mee say, Tell her anon,

That my selfe, (that is you, not I,)

Did kill me, and when I felt mee dye,

I bid mee send my heart, when I was gone,

But I alas could there finde none,

When I had ripp’d me,’and search’d where hearts did lye;

It kill’d mee againe, that I who still was true,

In life, in my last Will should cozen you.

Yet I found something like a heart,

But colours it, and corners had,

It was not good, it was not bad,

It was intire to none, and few had part.

As good as could be made by art

It seem’d; and therefore for our losses sad,

I meant to send this heart in stead of mine,

But oh, no man could hold it, for twas thine.

1633—69

A Feaver

O H doe 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 behinde, is death,

But when thou from this world wilt goe,

The whole world vapors with thy breath.

Or if, when thou, the worlds soule, goest,

It stay, tis but thy carkasse then,

The fairest woman, but thy ghost,

But corrupt wormes, the worthyest men.

O wrangling schooles, that search what fire

Shall burne this world, had none the wit

Unto this knowledge to aspire,

That this her feaver might be it?

And yet she cannot wast by this,

Nor long beare this torturing wrong,

For much corruption needfull is

To fuell such a feaver long.

These burning fits but meteors bee,

Whose matter in thee is soone spent.

Thy beauty,’and all parts, which are thee,

Are unchangeable firmament.

Yet t’was of my minde, seising thee,

Though it in thee cannot persever.

For I had rather owner bee

Of thee one houre, then all else ever.

1633—69

Aire and Angels

TWICE or thrice had I loved thee,

Before I knew thy face or name;

So in a voice, so in a shapelesse flame,

Angells affect us oft, and worship’d bee;

Still when, to where thou wert,

I came, Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.

But since my soule, whose child love is,

Takes limmes of flesh, and else could nothing doe,

More subtile then the parent is,

Love must not be, but take a body too,

And therefore what thou wert, and who,

I bid Love aske, and now

That it assume thy body, I allow,

And fixe it selfe in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,

And so more steddily to have gone,

With wares which would sinke admiration,

I saw, I had loves pinnace overfraught,

Ev’ry thy haire for love to worke upon

Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;

For, nor in nothing, nor in things

Extreme, and scatt’ring bright, can love inhere;

Then as an Angell, face, and wings

Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare,

So thy love may be my loves spheare; Just such disparitie

As is twixt Aire and Angells puritie,

«Twixt womens love, and mens will ever bee.

1633—69

Breake of day

«TIS true, ’tis day; what though it be?

O wilt thou therefore rise from me?

Why should we rise, because ’tis light?

Did we lie downe, because ’twas night?

Love which in spight of darknesse brought us hether,

Should in despight of light keepe us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;

If it could speake as well as spie,

This were the worst, that it could say,

That being well, I faine would stay,

And that I lov’d my heart and honor so,

That I would not from him, that had them, goe.

Must businesse thee from hence remove?

Oh, that’s the worst disease of love,

The poore, the foule, the false, love can

Admit, but not the busied man.

He which hath businesse, and makes love, doth doe

Such wrong, as when a maryed man doth wooe.

The Anniversarie

A LL Kings, and all their favorites,

All glory of honors, beauties, wits,

The Sun it selfe, which makes times, as they passe,

Is elder by a yeare, now, then it was

When thou and I first one another saw:

All other things, to their destruction draw,

Only our love hath no decay;

This, no to morrow hath, nor yesterday,

Running it never runs from us away,

But truly keepes his first, last, everlasting day.

Two graves must hide thine and my coarse,

If one might, death were no divorce.

Alas, as well as other Princes, wee,

(Who Prince enough in one another bee,)

Must leave at last in death, these eyes, and eares,

Oft fed with true oathes, and with sweet salt teares;

But soules 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, soules from their graves remove.

And then wee shall be throughly blest,

But wee no more, then all the rest;

Here upon earth, we’are Kings, and none but wee

Can be such Kings, nor of such subjects bee.

Who is so safe as wee? where none can doe

Treason to us, except one of us two.

True and false feares let us refraine,

Let us love nobly, and live, and adde againe

Yeares and yeares unto yeares, till we attaine

To write threescore: this is the second of our raigne.

1633—69

A Valediction: of my name, in the window

I.

MY name engrav’d herein,

Doth contribute my firmnesse to this glasse,

Which, ever since that charme, hath beene

As hard, as that which grav’d it, was;

Thine eye will give it price enough, to mock

The diamonds of either rock.

II.

«Tis much that Glasse should bee

As all confessing, and through-shine as I,

«Tis more, that it shewes thee to thee,

And cleare reflects thee to thine eye.

But all such rules, loves magique can undoe,

Here you see mee, and I am you.

III.

As no one point, nor dash,

Which are but accessaries to this name,

The showers and tempests can outwash,

So shall all times finde mee the same;

You this intirenesse better may fulfill,

Who have the patterne with you still.

IV.

Or, if too hard and deepe

This learning be, for a scratch’d name to teach,

It, as a given deaths head keepe,

Lovers mortalitie to preach,

Or thinke this ragged bony name to bee

My ruinous Anatomie.

V.

Then, as all my soules bee,

Emparadis’d in you, (in whom alone

I understand, and grow and see,)

The rafters of my body, bone

Being still with you, the Muscle,

Sinew, and Veine,

Which tile this house, will come againe.

VI.

Till my returne, repaire

And recompact my scattered body so.

As all the vertuous powers which are

Fix’d in the starres, are said to flow

Into such characters, as graved bee

When these starres have supremacie:

VII.

So, since this name was cut

When love and griefe their exaltation had,

No doore ’gainst this names influence shut;

As much more loving, as more sad,

«Twill make thee; and thou shouldst, till I returne,

Since I die daily, daily mourne.

VIII.

When thy inconsiderate hand

Flings ope this casement, with my trembling name,

To looke on one, whose wit or land,

New battry to thy heart may frame,

Then thinke this name alive, and that thou thus

In it offendst my Genius.

IX.

And when thy melted maid,

Corrupted by thy Lover’s gold, and page,

His letter at thy pillow’hath laid,

Disputed it, and tam’d thy rage,

And thou begin’st to thaw towards him, for this,

May my name step in, and hide his.

X.

And if this treason goe

To an overt act, and that thou write againe;

In superscribing, this name flow

Into thy fancy, from the pane.

So, in forgetting thou remembrest right,

And unaware to mee shalt write.

XI.

But glasse, and lines must bee,

No meanes our firme substantiall love to keepe;

Neere death inflicts this lethargie,

And this I murmure in my sleepe;

Impute this idle talke, to that I goe,

For dying men talke often so.

Twicknam garden

B LASTED with sighs, and surrounded with teares,

Hither I come to seeke the spring,

And at mine eyes, and at mine eares,

Receive such balmes, as else cure every thing;

But O, selfe traytor, 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.

«Twere wholsomer for mee, that winter did

Benight the glory of this place,

And that a grave frost did forbid

These trees to laugh, and mocke mee to my face;

But that I may not this disgrace

Indure, nor yet leave loving, Love let mee

Some senslesse peece of this place bee;

Make me a mandrake, so I may groane here,

Or a stone fountaine weeping out my yeare.

Hither with christall vyals, lovers come,

And take my teares, which are loves wine,

And try your mistresse Teares at home,

For all are false, that tast not just like mine;

Alas, hearts do not in eyes shine,

Nor can you more judge womans thoughts by teares,

Then by her shadow, what she weares.

O perverse sexe, where none is true but shee,

Who’s therefore true, because her truth kills mee.

1633—69

A Valediction: of the booke

I’LL tell thee now (deare Love) what thou shalt doe

To anger destiny, as she doth us,

How I shall stay, though she Esloygne me thus

And how posterity shall know it too;

How thine may out-endure

Sybills glory, and obscure

Her who from Pindar could allure,

And her, through whose helpe

Lucan is not lame,

And her, whose booke (they say)

Homer did finde, and name.

Study our manuscripts, those Myriades

Of letters, which have past twixt thee and mee,

Thence write our Annals, and in them will bee

To all whom loves subliming fire invades,

Rule and example found;

There, the faith of any ground

No schismatique 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 Booke, as long-liv’d as the elements,

Or as the worlds forme, this all-graved tome

In cypher writ, or new made Idiome,

Wee for loves clergie only’are instruments:

When this booke is made thus,

Should againe the ravenous

Vandals and Goths inundate us,

Learning were safe; in this our Universe

Schooles might learne Sciences,

Spheares Musick, Angels Verse.

Here Loves Divines, (since all Divinity

Is love or wonder) may finde all they seeke,

Whether abstract spirituall love they like,

Their Soules exhal’d with what they do not see,

Or, loth so to amuze

Faiths infirmitie, they chuse

Something which they may see and use;

For, though minde be the heaven, where love doth sit,

Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it.

Here more then in their bookes may Lawyers finde,

Both by what titles Mistresses are ours,

And how prerogative these states devours,

Transferr’d from Love himselfe, to womankinde,

Who though from heart, and eyes,

They exact great subsidies, Forsake him who on them relies,

And for the cause, honour, or conscience give,

Chimeraes, vaine as they, or their prerogative.

Here Statesmen, (or of them, they which can reade,)

May of their occupation finde the grounds:

Love and their art alike it deadly wounds,

If to consider what ’tis, one proceed,

In both they doe excell

Who the present governe well,

Whose weaknesse none doth, or dares tell;

In this thy booke, such will their nothing see,

As in the Bible some can finde out Alchimy.

Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I’ll studie thee,

As he removes farre off, that great heights takes;

How great love is, presence best tryall makes,

But absence tryes how long this love will bee;

To take a latitude

Sun, or starres, are fitliest view’d

At their brightest, but to conclude

Of longitudes, what other way have wee,

But to marke when, and where the darke eclipses bee?

1633—69

Communitie

GOOD wee must love, and must hate ill,

For ill is ill, and good good still,

But there are things indifferent,

Which wee may neither hate, nor love,

But one, and then another prove,

As wee shall finde our fancy bent.

If then at first wise Nature had

Made women either good or bad,

Then some wee might hate, and some chuse,

But since shee did them so create,

That we may neither love, nor hate,

Onely this rests, All, all may use.

If they were good it would be seene,

Good is as visible as greene,

And to all eyes it selfe betrayes:

If they were bad, they could not last,

Bad doth it selfe, and others wast,

So, they deserve nor blame, nor praise.

But they are ours as fruits are ours,

He that but tasts, he that devours,

And he that leaves all, doth as well:

Chang’d loves are but chang’d sorts of meat,

And when hee hath the kernell eate,

Who doth not fling away the shell?

Loves growth

ISCARCE beleeve my love to be so pure

As I had thought it was, Because it doth endure

Vicissitude, and season, as the grasse;

Me thinkes I lyed all winter, when I swore,

My love was infinite, if spring make’it more.

But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow

With more, not onely bee no quintessence,

But mixt of all stuffes, paining soule, or sense,

And of the Sunne his working vigour borrow,

Love’s not so pure, and abstract, as they use

To say, which have no Mistresse but their Muse,

But as all else, being elemented too,

Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

And yet no greater, but more eminent,

Love by the spring is growne; As, in the firmament,

Starres by the Sunne are not inlarg’d, but showne.

Gentle love deeds, as blossomes on a bough,

From loves awakened root do bud out now.

If, as in water stir’d more circles bee

Produc’d by one, love such additions take,

Those like so many spheares, but one heaven make,

For, they are all concentrique unto thee.

And though each spring doe adde to love new heate,

As princes doe in times of action get

New taxes, and remit them not in peace,

No winter shall abate the springs encrease.

1633—69

Loves exchange

LOVE, any devill else but you,

Would for a given Soule give something too.

At Court your fellowes every day,

Give th’art of Riming, Huntsmanship, or Play,

For them which were their owne before;

Onely I have nothing which gave more,

But am, alas, by being lowly, lower.

I aske no dispensation now

To falsifie a teare, or sigh, or vow,

I do not sue from thee to draw

A non obstante on natures law,

These are prerogatives, they inhere

In thee and thine; none should forsweare

Except that hee Loves minion were.

Give mee thy weaknesse, make mee blinde,

Both wayes, as thou and thine, in eies and minde;

Love, let me never know that this

Is love, or, that love childish is;

Let me not know that others know

That she knowes my paines, least that so

A tender shame make me mine owne new woe.

If thou give nothing, yet thou’art just,

Because I would not thy first motions trust;

Small townes which stand stiffe, till great shot

Enforce them, by warres law condition not.

Such in loves warfare is my case,

I may not article for grace,

Having put Love at last to shew this face.

This face, by which he could command

And change the Idolatrie of any land,

This face, which wheresoe’r it comes,

Can call vow’d men from cloisters, dead from tombes,

And melt both Poles at once, and store

Deserts with cities, and make more

Mynes in the earth, then Quarries were before.

For this, Love is enrag’d with mee, Yet kills not.

If I must example bee

To future Rebells; If th’unborne

Must learne, by my being cut up, and torne:

Kill, and dissect me, Love; for this

Torture against thine owne end is,

Rack’t carcasses make ill Anatomies.

1633—69

Confined Love

SOME man unworthy to be possessor

Of old or new love, himselfe being false or weake,

Thought his paine and shame would be lesser,

If on womankind he might his anger wreake,

And thence a law did grow,

One might but one man know; But are other creatures so?

Are Sunne, Moone, or Starres by law forbidden,

To smile where they list, or lend away their light?

Are birds divorc’d, or are they chidden

If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a night?

Beasts doe no joyntures lose

Though they new lovers choose,

But we are made worse then those.

Who e’r rigg’d faire ship to lie in harbors,

And not to seeke new lands, or not to deale withall?

Or built faire houses, set trees, and arbors,

Only to lock up, or else to let them fall?

Good is not good, unlesse

A thousand it possesse,

But doth wast with greedinesse.

1635—69

The Dreame

D EARE love, for nothing lesse then thee

Would I have broke this happy dreame, It was a theame

For reason, much too strong for phantasie,

Therefore thou wakd’st me wisely; yet

My Dreame thou brok’st not, but continued’st it,

Thou art so truth, that thoughts of thee suffice,

To make dreames truths; and fables histories;

Enter these armes, for since thou thoughtst it best,

Not to dreame all my dreame, let’s act the rest.

As lightning, or a Tapers light,

Thine eyes, and not thy noise wak’d mee;

Yet I thought thee

(For thou lovest truth) an Angell, at first sight,

But when I saw thou sawest my heart,

And knew’st my thoughts, beyond an Angels art,

When thou knew’st what I dreamt, when thou knew’st when

Excesse of joy would wake me, and cam’st then,

I must confesse, it could not chuse but bee

Prophane, to thinke thee any thing but thee.

Comming and staying show’d thee, thee,

But rising makes me doubt, that now,

Thou art not thou.

That love is weake, where feare’s as strong as hee;

Tis not all spirit, pure, and brave,

If mixture it of Feare, Shame, Honor, have.

Perchance as torches which must ready bee,

Men light and put out, so thou deal’st with mee,

Thou cam’st to kindle, goest to come; Then I

Will dreame that hope againe, but else would die.

1633—69

A Valediction: of weeping

LET me powre forth

My teares before thy face, whil’st I stay here,

For thy face coines them, and thy stampe they beare,

And by this Mintage they are something worth,

For thus they bee

Pregnant of thee;

Fruits of much griefe they are, emblemes of more,

When a teare falls, that thou falst which it bore,

So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore.

On a round ball

A workeman that hath copies by, can lay

An Europe, Afrique, and an Asia,

And quickly make that, which was nothing,

All, So doth each teare,

Which thee doth weare,

A globe, yea world by that impression grow,

Till thy teares mixt with mine doe overflow

This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

O more then Moone,

Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare,

Weepe me not dead, in thine armes, but forbeare

To teach the sea, what it may doe too soone;

Let not the winde

Example finde,

To doe me more harme, then it purposeth;

Since thou and I sigh one anothers breath,

Who e’r sighes most, is cruellest, and hasts the others death.

1633—69

Loves Alchymie

SOME that have deeper digg’d loves

Myne then I, Say, where his centrique happinesse doth lie:

I have lov’d, and got, and told,

But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,

I should not finde that hidden mysterie;

Oh, ’tis imposture all:

And as no chymique yet th’Elixar got,

But glorifies his pregnant pot,

If by the way to him befall

Some odoriferous thing, or medicinall,

So, lovers dreame a rich and long delight,

But get a winter-seeming summers night.

Our ease, our thrift, our honor, and our day,

Shall we, for this vaine Bubles shadow pay?

Ends love in this, that my man,

Can be as happy’as I can; If he can

Endure the short scorne of a Bridegroomes play?

That loving wretch that sweares,

«Tis not the bodies marry, but the mindes,

Which he in her Angelique findes,

Would sweare as justly, that he heares,

In that dayes rude hoarse minstralsey, the spheares.

Hope not for minde in women; at their best

Sweetnesse and wit, they’are but Mummy, possest.

The Flea

MARKE but this flea, and marke in this,

How little that which thou deny’st me is;

It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee;

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sinne, nor shame, nor losse of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,

And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two,

And this, alas, is more then wee would doe.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where wee almost, yea more then maryed are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our mariage bed, and mariage temple is;

Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,

And cloysterd in these living walls of Jet.

Though use make you apt to kill mee,

Let not to that, selfe murder added bee,

And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.

Cruell and sodaine, hast thou since

Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea guilty bee,

Except in that drop which it suckt from thee?

Yet thou triumph’st, and saist that thou

Find’st not thy selfe, nor mee the weaker now;

«Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee;

Just so much honor, when thou yeeld’st to mee,

Will wast, as this flea’s death tooke life from thee.

1635—69

The Curse

WHO ever guesses, thinks, or dreames he knowes

Who is my mistris, wither by this curse;

His only, and only his purse

May some dull heart to love dispose,

And shee yeeld then to all that are his foes;

May he be scorn’d by one, whom all else scorne,

Forsweare to others, what to her he’hath sworne,

With feare of missing, shame of getting, torne:

Madnesse his sorrow, gout his cramp, may hee

Make, by but thinking, who hath made him such:

And may he feele no touch

Of conscience, but of fame, and bee

Anguish’d, not that’twas sinne, but that’twas shee:

In early and long scarcenesse may he rot,

For land which had been his, if he had not

Himselfe incestuously an heire begot:

May he dreame Treason, and beleeve, that hee

Meant to performe it, and confesse, and die,

And no record tell why:

His sonnes, which none of his may bee,

Inherite nothing but his infamie:

Or may he so long Parasites have fed,

That he would faine be theirs, whom he hath bred,

And at the last be circumcis’d for bread:

The venom of all stepdames, gamsters gall,

What Tyrans, and their subjects interwish,

What Plants, Mynes, Beasts, Foule,

Fish, Can contribute, all ill which all

Prophets, or Poets spake; And all which shall

Be annex’d in schedules unto this by mee,

Fall on that man; For if it be a shee

Nature before hand hath out-cursed mee.

1633—69

The Message

SEND home my long strayd eyes to mee,

Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee;

Yet since there they have learn’d such ill,

Such forc’d fashions, And false passions,

That they be

Made by thee

Fit for no good sight, keep them still.

Send home my harmlesse heart againe,

Which no unworthy thought could staine;

But if it be taught by thine

To make jestings

Of protestings,

And crosse both

Word and oath,

Keepe it, for then ’tis none of mine.

Yet send me back my heart and eyes,

That I may know, and see thy lyes,

And may laugh and joy, when thou

Art in anguish

And dost languish

For some one

That will none,

Or prove as false as thou art now.

A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day

Being the shortest day.

TIS the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,

Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,

The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks

Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;

The worlds whole sap is sunke:

The generall balme th’hydroptique earth hath drunk,

Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunke,

Dead and enterr’d; yet all these seeme to laugh,

Compar’d with mee, who am their Epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers bee

At the next world, that is, at the next Spring:

For I am every dead thing,

In whom love wrought new Alchimie.

For his art did expresse

A quintessence even from nothingnesse,

From dull privations, and leane emptinesse:

He ruin’d mee, and I am re-begot

Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,

Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have;

I, by loves limbecke, am the grave

Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood

Have wee two wept, and so

Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow

To be two Chaosses, when we did show

Care to ought else; and often absences

Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death, (which word wrongs her)

Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;

Were I a man, that I were one,

I needs must know; I should preferre,

If I were any beast, Some ends, some means;

Yea plants, yea stones detest,

And love; All, all some properties invest;

If I an ordinary nothing were,

As shadow, a light, and body must be here.

But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.

You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne

At this time to the Goat is runne

To fetch new lust, and give it you,

Enjoy your summer all;

Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall,

Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call

This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this

Both the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.

1633—69

Witchcraft by a picture

I FIXE mine eye on thine, and there

Pitty my picture burning in thine eye,

My picture drown’d in a transparent teare,

When I looke lower I espie;

Hadst thou the wicked skill

By pictures made and mard, to kill,

How many wayes mightst thou performe thy will?

But now I have drunke thy sweet salt teares,

And though thou poure more I’ll depart;

My picture vanish’d, vanish feares,

That I can be endamag’d by that art;

Though thou retaine of mee

One picture more, yet that will bee,

Being in thine owne heart, from all malice free.

The Baite

C OME live with mee, and bee my love,

And wee will some new pleasures prove

Of golden sands, and christall brookes,

With silken lines, and silver hookes.

There will the river whispering runne

Warm’d by thy eyes, more then the Sunne.

And there the’inamor’d fish will stay,

Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swimme in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channell hath,

Will amorously to thee swimme,

Gladder to catch thee, then thou him.

If thou, to be so seene, beest loath,

By Sunne, or Moone, thou darknest both,

And if my selfe have leave to see,

I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legges, with shells and weeds,

Or treacherously poore fish beset,

With strangling snare, or windowie net:

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,

Or curious traitors, sleavesilke flies

Bewitch poore fishes wandring eyes.

For thee, thou needst no such deceit,

For thou thy selfe art thine owne bait;

That fish, that is not catch’d thereby,

Alas, is wiser farre then I.

The Apparition

WHEN by thy scorne, O murdresse,

I am dead, And that thou thinkst thee free

From all solicitation from mee,

Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,

And thee, fain’d vestall, in worse armes shall see;

Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,

And he, whose thou art then, being tyr’d before,

Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinke

Thou call’st for more,

And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke,

And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou

Bath’d in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lye

A veryer ghost then I;

What I will say, I will not tell thee now,

Lest that preserve thee’; and since my love is spent,

I’had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,

Then by my threatnings rest still innocent.

The broken heart

HE is starke mad, who ever sayes,

That he hath beene in love an houre,

Yet not that love so soone decayes,

But that it can tenne in lesse space devour;

Who will beleeve mee, if I sweare

That I have had the plague a yeare?

Who would not laugh at mee, if I should say,

I saw a flaske of powder burne a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,

If once into loves hands it come!

All other griefes allow a part

To other griefes, and aske themselves but some;

They come to us, but us Love draws,

Hee swallows us, and never chawes:

By him, as by chain’d shot, whole rankes doe dye,

He is the tyran Pike, our hearts the Frye.

If ’twere not so, what did become

Of my heart, when I first saw thee?

I brought a heart into the roome,

But from the roome,

I carried none with mee:

If it had gone to thee, I know

Mine would have taught thine heart to show

More pitty unto mee: but Love, alas,

At one first blow did shiver it as glasse.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,

Nor any place be empty quite,

Therefore I thinke my breast hath all

Those peeces still, though they be not unite;

And now as broken glasses show

A hundred lesser faces, so

My ragges of heart can like, wish, and adore,

But after one such love, can love no more.

1633—69

A Valediction: forbidding mourning

A S virtuous men passe mildly away,

And whisper to their soules, to goe,

Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,

The breath goes now, and some say, no:

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,

T’were prophanation of our joyes

To tell the layetie our love.

Moving of th’earth brings harmes and feares,

Men reckon what it did and meant,

But trepidation of the spheares,

Though greater farre, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers love

(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love, so much refin’d,

That our selves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.

Our two soules therefore, which are one,

Though I must goe, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiffe twin compasses are two,

Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if the’other doe.

And though it in the center sit,

Yet when the other far doth rome,

It leanes, and hearkens after it,

And growes erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must

Like th’other foot, obliquely runne;

Thy firmnes makes my circle just,

And makes me end, where I begunne.

1633—69

The Extasie

WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,

A Pregnant banke swel’d up, to rest

The violets reclining head,

Sat we two, one anothers best.

Our hands were firmely cimented

With a fast balme, which thence did spring,

Our eye-beames twisted, and did thred

Our eyes, upon one double string;

So to’entergraft our hands, as yet

Was all the meanes to make us one,

And pictures in our eyes to get

Was all our propagation.

As ’twixt two equall Armies, Fate

Suspends uncertaine victorie,

Our soules, (which to advance their state,

Were gone out,) hung ’twixt her, and mee.

And whil’st our soules negotiate there,

Wee like sepulchrall statues lay;

All day, the same our postures were,

And wee said nothing, all the day.

If any, so by love refin’d,

That he soules language understood,

And by good love were growen all minde,

Within convenient distance stood,

He (though he knew not which soule spake,

Because both meant, both spake the same)

Might thence a new concoction take,

And part farre purer then he came.

This Extasie doth unperplex

(We said) and tell us what we love,

Wee see by this, it was not sexe,

Wee see, we saw not what did move:

But as all severall soules containe

Mixture of things, they know not what,

Love, these mixt soules, doth mixe againe,

And makes both one, each this and that.

A single violet transplant,

The strength, the colour, and the size,

(All which before was poore, and scant,)

Redoubles still, and multiplies.

When love, with one another so

Interinanimates two soules,

That abler soule, which thence doth flow,

Defects of lonelinesse controules.

Wee then, who are this new soule, know,

Of what we are compos’d, and made,

For, th’Atomies of which we grow,

Are soules, whom no change can invade.

But O alas, so long, so farre

Our bodies why doe wee forbeare?

They are ours, though they are not wee, Wee are

The intelligences, they the spheare.

We owe them thankes, because they thus,

Did us, to us, at first convay,

Yeelded their forces, sense, to us,

Nor are drosse to us, but allay.

On man heavens influence workes not so,

But that it first imprints the ayre,

Soe soule into the soule may flow,

Though it to body first repaire.

As our blood labours to beget

Spirits, as like soules as it can,

Because such fingers need to knit

That subtile knot, which makes us man:

So must pure lovers soules descend

T’affections, and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend,

Else a great Prince in prison lies.

To’our bodies turne wee then, that so

Weake men on love reveal’d may looke;

Loves mysteries in soules doe grow,

But yet the body is his booke.

And if some lover, such as wee,

Have heard this dialogue of one,

Let him still marke us, he shall see

Small change, when we’are to bodies gone.

Loves Deitie

ILONG to talke with some old lovers ghost, Who dyed before the god of Love was borne: I cannot thinke that hee, who then lov’d most, Sunke so low, as to love one which did scorne. 5But since this god produc’d a destinie, And that vice-nature, custome, lets it be; I must love her, that loves not mee.
Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much, Nor he, in his young godhead practis’d it; 10But when an even flame two hearts did touch, His office was indulgently to fit
Actives to passives. Correspondencie
Only his subject was; It cannot bee
Love, till I love her, that loves mee.
15But every moderne god will now extend
His vast prerogative, as far as Jove. To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend, All is the purlewe of the God of Love. Oh were wee wak’ned by this Tyrannie
20To ungod this child againe, it could not bee
I should love her, who loves not mee.
Rebell and Atheist too, why murmure I, As though I felt the worst that love could doe?
Love might make me leave loving, or might trie
25A deeper plague, to make her love mee too, Which, since she loves before, I’am loth to see; Falshood is worse then hate; and that must bee, If shee whom I love, should love mee.

1633—69,9

Loves diet

TO what a combersome unwieldinesse And burdenous corpulence my love had growne, But that I did, to make it lesse, And keepe it in proportion, 5Give 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
10A she sigh from my mistresse heart, And thought to feast on that, I let him see
«Twas neither very sound, nor meant to mee.
If he wroung from mee’a teare, I brin’d it so
With scorne or shame, that him it nourish’d not; 15If he suck’d hers, I let him know
«Twas not a teare, which hee had got, His drinke was counterfeit, as was his meat; For, eyes which rowle towards all, weepe not, but sweat.
What ever he would dictate, I writ that, 20But burnt my letters; When she writ to me, And that that favour made him fat, I said, if any title bee
Convey’d by this, Ah, what doth it availe, To be the fortieth name in an entaile?
[page 56]
25Thus I reclaim’d my buzard love, to flye
At what, and when, and how, and where I chuse; Now negligent of sport I lye, And now as other Fawkners use, I spring a mistresse, sweare, write, sigh and weepe: 30And the game kill’d, or lost, goe talke, and sleepe.

Loves diet. 1633—69, A18, A25, B, C, Cy, D, H40, H49, L74, Lec, N, O’F, P, S, TCC (torn out of TCD): Amoris Dieta. S96
12 mee. Ed: mee; 1633—35: mee: 1639—69
18 For,] Her 1669
19 Whatever… that, 1633—39, 1669: Whate’er might him distast I still writ that, 1650—54: Whatsoever hee would distast I writt that, A18, N, TC
20 But burnt my letters; When she writ to me, 1633: But burnt her letters when she writ to me, 1635: But burnt her letters when she writ to me; 1639—54, Chambers: But burnt my letters which she writ to me; 1669
21 that that 1633: if that 1635—69. See note
24 name] man 1669
25 reclaim’d 1635—69, A18, A25, B, D, H40, H49, L74, N, O’F, S, TCC: redeem’d 1633, Lec
26 chuse] chose 1669
27 sport 1635—69, A18, B, D, H40, H49, L74, Lec, S, S96, TCC: sports, 1633
30 and 1633 and most MSS.: or 1635—69, Cy, O’F, S

Note

The Will

BEFORE I sigh my last gaspe, let me breath, Great love, some Legacies; Here I bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see, If they be blinde, then Love, I give them thee; 5My tongue to Fame; to’Embassadours mine eares; To women or the sea, my teares. Thou, Love, hast taught mee heretofore
By making mee serve her who’had twenty more, That I should give to none, but such, as had too much before.
10My constancie I to the planets give; My truth to them, who at the Court doe live; Mine ingenuity and opennesse, To Jesuites; to Buffones my pensivenesse; My silence to’any, who abroad hath beene; 15My mony to a Capuchin. Thou Love taught’st me, by appointing mee
To love there, where no love receiv’d can be, Onely to give to such as have an incapacitie. [page 57]
My faith I give to Roman Catholiques; 20All my good works unto the Schismaticks
Of Amsterdam; my best civility
And Courtship, to an Universitie; My modesty I give to souldiers bare; My patience let gamesters share. 25Thou Love taughtst mee, by making mee
Love her that holds my love disparity, Onely to give to those that count my gifts indignity.
I give my reputation to those
Which were my friends; Mine industrie to foes; 30To Schoolemen I bequeath my doubtfulnesse; My sicknesse to Physitians, or excesse; To Nature, all that I in Ryme have writ; And to my company my wit. Thou Love, by making mee adore
35Her, who begot this love in mee before, Taughtst me to make, as though I gave, when I did but restore.
To him for whom the passing bell next tolls, I give my physick bookes; my writen rowles
Of Morall counsels, I to Bedlam give; 40My brazen medals, unto them which live
In want of bread; To them which passe among
All forrainers, mine English tongue. Thou, Love, by making mee love one
Who thinkes her friendship a fit portion
45For yonger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.
Therefore I’ll give no more; But I’ll undoe
The world by dying; because love dies too. Then all your beauties will bee no more worth
Then gold in Mines, where none doth draw it forth; [page 58]
50And all your graces no more use shall have
Then a Sun dyall in a grave. Thou Love taughtst mee, by making mee
Love her, who doth neglect both mee and thee, To’invent, and practise this one way, to’annihilate all three.

1633—69

The Funerall

WHO ever comes to shroud me, do not harme
Nor question much
That subtile wreath of haire, which crowns my arme; The mystery, the signe you must not touch, 5For ’tis my outward Soule, Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone, Will leave this to controule, And keepe these limbes, her Provinces, from dissolution.
For if the sinewie thread my braine lets fall
10Through every part, Can tye those parts, and make mee one of all; These haires which upward grew, and strength and art
Have from a better braine, Can better do’it; Except she meant that I
15By this should know my pain, As prisoners then are manacled, when they’are condemn’d to die. [page 59]
What ere shee meant by’it, bury it with me, For since I am
Loves martyr, it might breed idolatrie, 20If into others hands these Reliques came; As’twas humility
To afford to it all that a Soule can doe, So,’tis some bravery, That since you would save none of mee, I bury some of you.

The Funerall. 1633—69, A18, B, Cy, D, H49, L74, Lec, N, O’F, P, S, S96, TCC, TCD
3 which… arme;] about mine arm; 1669
6 then to A18, B, Cy, D, H49, L74, Lec, N, O’F, P, S, S96, TC: unto 1633—69
12 These A18, B, Cy, D, H49, L74, N, S (The), S96, TC: Those 1633—69, Lec, O’F grew, 1633—39: grow, 1650—69
16 condemn’d] condem’nd 1633
17 with me, 1635—69 and MSS.: by me, 1633
24 save A18, B, Cy, D, H49, L74, N, P, TC: have 1633—69, Lec, O’F, S96: om. S

Note

The Blossome

LITTLE think’st thou, poore flower, Whom I have watch’d sixe or seaven dayes, And seene thy birth, and seene what every houre
Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise, 5And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough, Little think’st thou
That it will freeze anon, and that I shall
To morrow finde thee falne, or not at all.
Little think’st thou poore heart
10That labour’st yet to nestle thee, And think’st by hovering here to get a part
In a forbidden or forbidding tree, And hop’st her stiffenesse by long siege to bow: Little think’st thou, 15That thou to morrow, ere that Sunne doth wake, Must with this Sunne, and mee a journey take. [page 60]
But thou which lov’st to bee
Subtile to plague thy selfe, wilt say, Alas, if you must goe, what’s that to mee?
20Here lyes my businesse, and here I will stay: You goe to friends, whose love and meanes present
Various content
To your eyes, eares, and tongue, and every part. If then your body goe, what need you a heart?
25Well then, stay here; but know, When thou hast stayd and done thy most; A naked thinking heart, that makes no show, Is to a woman, but a kinde of Ghost; How shall shee know my heart; or having none, 30Know thee for one?
Practise may make her know some other part, But take my word, shee doth not know a Heart.
Meet mee at London, then, Twenty dayes hence, and thou shalt see
35Mee fresher, and more fat, by being with men, Then if I had staid still with her and thee. For Gods sake, if you can, be you so too: I would give you
There, to another friend, whom wee shall finde
40As glad to have my body, as my minde.

The Primrose, being at Montgomery Castle, upon the hill, on which it is situate

V PON this Primrose hill, Where, if Heav’n would distill
A shoure of raine, each severall drop might goe
To his owne primrose, and grow Manna so; 5And where their forme, and their infinitie
Make a terrestriall Galaxie, As the small starres doe in the skie: I walke to finde a true Love; and I see
That’tis not a mere woman, that is shee, 10But must, or more, or lesse then woman bee.
Yet know I not, which flower
I wish; a sixe, or foure; For should my true-Love lesse then woman bee, She were scarce any thing; and then, should she
15Be more then woman, shee would get above
All thought of sexe, and thinke to move
My heart to study her, and not to love; Both these were monsters; Since there must reside

Falshood in woman, I could more abide,

She were by art, then 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 farthest number; if halfe ten

Belonge unto each woman, then

Each woman may take halfe us men;

Or if this will not serve their turne, Since all

Numbers are odde, or even, and they fall

First into this, five, women may take us all.

The Relique

WHEN my grave is broke up againe

Some second ghest to entertaine,

(For graves have learn’d that woman-head

To be to more then one a Bed)

And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright haire about the bone,

Will he not let’us alone,

And thinke that there a loving couple lies,

Who thought that this device might be some way

To make their soules, at the last busie day,

Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

If this fall in a time, or land,

Where mis-devotion doth command,

Then, he that digges us up, will bring

Us, to the Bishop, and 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 wee harmelesse lovers wrought.

First, we lov’d well and faithfully,

Yet knew not what wee lov’d, nor why,

Difference of sex no more wee knew,

Then our Guardian Angells doe;

Comming and going, wee

Perchance might kisse, but not between those meales;

Our hands ne’r toucht the seales,

Which nature, injur’d by late law, sets free:

These miracles wee did; but now alas,

All measure, and all language,

I would passe,

Should I tell what a miracle shee was.

The Dampe

WHEN I am dead, and Doctors know not why,

And my friends curiositie

Will have me cut up to survay each part,

When they shall finde your Picture in my heart,

You thinke a sodaine dampe of love

Will through all their senses move,

And worke on them as mee, and so preferre

Your murder, to the name of Massacre.

Poore victories! But if you dare be brave,

And pleasure in your conquest have,

First kill th’enormous Gyant, your Disdaine,

And let th’enchantresse Honor, next be slaine,

And like a Goth and Vandall rize,

Deface Records, and Histories

Of your owne arts and triumphs over men,

And without such advantage kill me then.

For I could muster up as well as you

My Gyants, and my Witches too,

Which are vast Constancy, and Secretnesse,

But these I neyther looke for, nor professe;

Kill mee as Woman, let mee die

As a meere man; doe you but try

Your passive valor, and you shall finde than,

In that you’have odds enough of any man.

1633—69

The Dissolution

SHEE’IS dead; And all which die
To their first Elements resolve; And wee were mutuall Elements to us, And made of one another. 5My body then doth hers involve, And those things whereof I consist, hereby
In me abundant grow, and burdenous, And nourish not, but smother.
My fire of Passion, sighes of ayre, 10Water of teares, and earthly sad despaire, Which my materialls bee, But neere worne out by loves securitie, Shee, to my losse, doth by her death repaire, And I might live long wretched so
15But that my fire doth with my fuell grow. Now as those Active Kings
Whose foraine conquest treasure brings, Receive more, and spend more, and soonest breake: This (which I am amaz’d that I can speake)
20This death, hath with my store
My use encreas’d. And so my soule more earnestly releas’d, Will outstrip hers; As bullets flowen before
A latter bullet may o’rtake, the pouder being more.

1633—69

A Ieat Ring Sent

THOU art not so black, as my heart, Nor halfe so brittle, as her heart, thou art; What would’st thou say? shall both our properties by thee bee spoke, Nothing more endlesse, nothing sooner broke?
5Marriage rings are not of this stuffe; Oh, why should ought lesse precious, or lesse tough
Figure our loves? Except in thy name thou have bid it say, I’am cheap, and nought but fashion, fling me’away. [page 66]
Yet stay with mee since thou art come, 10Circle this fingers top, which did’st her thombe. Be justly proud, and gladly safe, that thou dost dwell with me, She that, Oh, broke her faith, would soon breake thee.

A Ieat Ring sent. 1633—69, A18, N, O’F, TCC, TCD: To a Jeat Ring sent to me. W (among the Epigrams)
7 loves] love O’F say, Ed: say 1633—69

Note

Negative love

INEVER stoop’d so low, as they Which on an eye, cheeke, lip, can prey, Seldome to them, which soare no higher
Then vertue or the minde to’admire, 5For sense, and understanding may
Know, what gives fuell to their fire: My love, though silly, is more brave, For may I misse, when ere I crave, If I know yet, what I would have.
10If that be simply perfectest
Which can by no way be exprest
But Negatives, my love is so. To All, which all love, I say no. If any who deciphers best, 15What we know not, our selves, can know, Let him teach mee that nothing; This
As yet my ease, and comfort is, Though I speed not, I cannot misse.

1633—69,

The Prohibition

TAKE heed of loving mee, At least remember, I forbade it thee; Not that I shall repaire my’unthrifty wast
Of Breath and Blood, upon thy sighes, and teares, 5By being to thee then what to me thou wast; But, so great Joy, our life at once outweares, Then, least thy love, by my death, frustrate bee, If thou love mee, take heed of loving mee.
Take heed of hating mee, 10Or too much triumph in the Victorie. Not that I shall be mine owne officer, And hate with hate againe retaliate; But thou wilt lose the stile of conquerour, If I, thy conquest, perish by thy hate. 15Then, least my being nothing lessen thee, If thou hate mee, take heed of hating mee.
Yet, love and hate mee too, So, these extreames shall neithers office doe; Love mee, that I may die the gentler way; 20Hate mee, because thy love is too great for mee; Or let these two, themselves, not me decay; So shall I, live, thy Stage, not triumph bee; [page 68]
Lest thou thy love and hate and mee undoe, To let mee live, O love and hate mee too.

Lest thou thy love and hate and mee undoe
To let mee live, Oh (of in some copies) love and hate mee too.

1633, B
Then lest thou thy love hate, and mee thou undoe
O let me live, yet love and hate me too.

1635—54, Cy, D, H40, H49, JC, O’F (MSS. omitting first thou and some with Oh for yet)

Lest thou thy love, and hate, and me thou undo,

O let me live, yet love and hate me too.

1669.

The Expiration

SO, so, breake off this last lamenting kisse,

Which sucks two soules, and vapors Both away,

Turne thou ghost that way, and let mee turne this,

And let our selves benight our happiest day,

We ask’d none leave to love; nor will we owe

Any, so cheape a death, as saying, Goe;

Goe; and if that word have not quite kil’d thee,

Ease mee with death, by bidding mee goe too.

Oh, if it have, let my word worke on mee,

And a just office on a murderer doe.

Except it be too late, to kill me so,

Being double dead, going, and bidding, goe.

The Computation

FOR the first twenty yeares, since yesterday,

I scarce beleev’d, thou could’st be gone away,

For forty more, I fed on favours past,

And forty’on hopes, that thou would’st, they might last.

Teares drown’d one hundred, and sighes blew out two,

A thousand, I did neither thinke, nor doe,

Or not divide, all being one thought of you;

Or in a thousand more, forgot that too.

Yet call not this long life; But thinke that I

Am, by being dead, Immortall; Can ghosts die?

The Paradox

NO Lover saith, I love, nor any other
Can judge a perfect Lover; Hee thinkes that else none can, nor will agree
That any loves but hee: 5I cannot say I lov’d, for who can say
Hee was kill’d yesterday?
Love with excesse of heat, more yong then old, Death kills with too much cold; Wee dye but once, and who lov’d last did die, 10Hee that saith twice, doth lye: For though hee seeme to move, and stirre a while, It doth the sense beguile. [page 70]
Such life is like the light which bideth yet
When the lights life is set, 15Or like the heat, which fire in solid matter
Leaves behinde, two houres after. Once I lov’d and dy’d; and am now become
Mine Epitaph and Tombe. Here dead men speake their last, and so do I; 20Love-slaine, loe, here I lye.

Farewell to Love

WHILST yet to prove, I thought there was some Deitie in love
So did I reverence, and gave
Worship; as Atheists at their dying houre 5Call, what they cannot name, an unknowne power, As ignorantly did I crave: Thus when
Things not yet knowne are coveted by men, Our desires give them fashion, and so
10As they waxe lesser, fall, as they sise, grow.
But, from late faire
His hignesse sitting in a golden Chaire, Is not lesse cared for after three dayes
By children, then the thing which lovers so
15Blindly admire, and with such worship wooe; Being had, enjoying it decayes: And thence, What before pleas’d them all, takes but one sense, And that so lamely, as it leaves behinde
20A kinde of sorrowing dulnesse to the minde. [page 71]
Ah cannot wee, As well as Cocks and Lyons jocund be, After such pleasures? Unlesse wise
Nature decreed (since each such Act, they say, 25Diminisheth the length of life a day)
This, as shee would man should despise
The sport; Because that other curse of being short, And onely for a minute made to be, 30 (Eagers desire) to raise posterity.
Since so, my minde
Shall not desire what no man else can finde, I’ll no more dote and runne
To pursue things which had indammag’d me. 35And when I come where moving beauties be, As men doe when the summers Sunne
Growes great, Though I admire their greatnesse, shun their heat; Each place can afford shadowes. If all faile, 40'Tis but applying worme-seed to the Taile.

Farewell to love. 1635—69 (following Soules joy: p. 429), O’F, S96
4 Worship; Ed: Worship, 1635—69
10 sise, 1635—69, O’F: rise S96
23 pleasures? Ed: pleasures, 1635—69
26 This, Ed: This; 1635—69
27 sport; Ed: sport, 1635—69
29 to be, Ed: to be 1635—69
30 (Eagers desire) Ed: Eager, desires 1635—69. See note
36 summers 1635—69: summer 1650—1669

Note

A Lecture upon the Shadow

STAND still, and I will read to thee
A Lecture, Love, in loves philosophy. These three houres that we have spent, Walking here, Two shadowes went Along with us, which we our selves produc’d; But, now the Sunne is just above our head, We doe those shadowes tread; And to brave clearnesse all things are reduc’d. So whilst our infant loves did grow, 10Disguises did, and shadowes, flow, From us, and our cares; but, now ’tis not so.
That love hath not attain’d the high’st degree, Which is still diligent lest others see.
Except our loves at this noone stay, 15We shall new shadowes make the other way. As the first were made to blinde
Others; these which come behinde
Will worke upon our selves, and blind our eyes. If our loves faint, and westwardly decline; 20To me thou, falsly, thine, And I to thee mine actions shall disguise. The morning shadowes weare away, But these grow longer all the day, But oh, loves day is short, if love decay.
25Love is a growing, or full constant light; And his first minute, after noone, is night.

Sonnet. The Token

S END me some token, that my hope may live, Or that my easelesse thoughts may sleep and rest; Send me some honey to make sweet my hive, That in my passion I may hope the best. [page 73] 5I beg noe ribbond wrought with thine owne hands, To knit our loves in the fantastick straine
Of new-toucht youth; nor Ring to shew the stands
Of our affection, that as that’s round and plaine, So should our loves meet in simplicity; 10No, nor the Coralls which thy wrist infold, Lac’d up together in congruity, To shew our thoughts should rest in the same hold; No, nor thy picture, though most gracious, And most desir’d, because best like the best; 15Nor witty Lines, which are most copious, Within the Writings which thou hast addrest.
Send me nor this, nor that, t’increase my store, But swear thou thinkst I love thee, and no more.

〈Selfe Love.〉

H E that cannot chuse but love, And strives against it still, Never shall my fancy move; For he loves ’gaynst his will; 5Nor he which is all his own, And can att pleasure chuse, When I am caught he can be gone, And when he list refuse. Nor he that loves none but faire, 10For such by all are sought; Nor he that can for foul ones care, For his Judgement then is nought: [page 74]
Nor he that hath wit, for he
Will make me his jest or slave; 15Nor a fool, for when others…, He can neither…
Nor he that still his Mistresse payes, For she is thrall’d therefore: Nor he that payes not, for he sayes
20Within, shee’s worth no more. Is there then no kinde of men
Whom I may freely prove?
I will vent that humour then
In mine own selfe love.

EPIGRAMS

Hero and Leander

BOTH rob’d of aire, we both lye in one ground,

Both whom one fire had burnt, one water drownd.

1633—69

Pyramus and Thisbe

TWO, by themselves, each other, love and feare

Slaine, cruell friends, by parting have joyn’d here.

Niobe

BY childrens births, and death,

I am become So dry, that

I am now mine owne sad tombe.

A burnt ship

OUT of a fired ship, which, by no way

But drowning, could be rescued from the flame,

Some men leap’d forth, and ever as they came

Neere the foes 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

VNDER an undermin’d, and shot-bruis’d wall

A too-bold Captaine perish’d by the fall,

Whose brave misfortune, happiest men envi’d,

That had a towne for tombe, his bones to hide.

A lame begger

Iam unable, yonder begger cries, To stand, or move; if he say true, hee lies.

A lame begger. 1633—69, A18, N, TC: A beggar. HN: no title, P: Zoppo. O’F, W

Note

Cales and Guyana

I F you from spoyle of th’old worlds farthest end To the new world your kindled valors bend, What brave examples then do prove it trew
That one things end doth still beginne a new.

Cales and Guyana. O’F: Calez &c. W: first printed in Gosse’s Life and Letters of John Donne (1899)

Note

Sir Iohn Wingefield

BEYOND th’old Pillers many have travailed Towards the Suns cradle, and his throne, and bed: A fitter Piller our Earle did bestow
In that late Island; for he well did know
Farther then Wingefield no man dares to goe.

Sir Iohn Wingefield. Ed: Il Cavalliere Gio: Wingef: W: On Cavallero Wingfield. O’F: first printed in Gosse’s Life and Letters of John Donne (1899)
2 throne W: grave O’F
4 late W: Lady O’F

A selfe accuser

YOUR mistris, that you follow whores, still taxeth you: «Tis strange that she should thus confesse it, though’it be true.

A selfe accuser. 1633—69: A Mistrisse. HN: no title, B, O’F, W

A licentious person

THY sinnes and haires may no man equall call,

For, as thy sinnes increase, thy haires doe fall.

1633—69

Antiquary

I F in his Studie 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 poore;

Thou hast good title still.

Phryne

THY flattering picture,

Phryne, is like thee,

Onely in this, that you both painted be.

An obscure writer

PHILO, with twelve yeares study, hath beene griev’d
To be understood; when will hee be beleev’d?

Klockius

KLOCKIUS so deeply hath sworne, ne’r more to come In bawdie house, that hee dares not goe home.

1633—69,

Raderus

Why this man gelded Martiall I muse, Except himselfe alone his tricks would use, As Katherine, for the Courts sake, put downe Stewes.

Raderus. 1633—69, A18, N, TCD: Randerus. TCC: Martial: castratus. W
1 Martiall I muse, 1633—54: Martiall, I amuse, 1669

Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus

L ike Esops fellow-slaves, O Mercury, Which could do all things, thy faith is; and I
Like Esops selfe, which nothing; I confesse
I should have had more faith, if thou hadst lesse; Thy credit lost thy credit: «Tis sinne to doe, In this case, as thou wouldst be done unto, To beleeve all: Change thy name: thou art like
Mercury in stealing, but lyest like a Greeke.

Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus. 1633—69, A18, B, N, O’F, S, TCC, TCD, W
8 but lyest 1633—69: and lyest B, W

Ralphius

C OMPASSION in the world againe is bred: Ralphius is sick, the broker keeps his bed.

Ralphius. HN: no title, 1633—69, O’F

The Lier

THOU in the fields walkst out thy supping howers,

And yet thou swear’st thou hast supp’d like a king:

Like Nebuchadnezar perchance with grass and flowers,

A sallet worse then Spanish dieting.

ELEGIES

ELEGIE I

Iealosie.

FOND woman, which would’st have thy husband die,

And yet complain’st of his great jealousie;

If swolne with poyson, hee lay in’ his last bed,

His body with a sere-barke covered,

Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can

The nimblest crocheting Musitian,

Ready with loathsome vomiting to spue

His Soule out of one hell, into a new,

Made deafe with his poore kindreds howling cries,

Begging with few feign’d teares, great legacies,

Thou would’st not weepe, but jolly,’and frolicke bee,

As a slave, which to morrow should be free;

Yet weep’st thou, when thou seest him hungerly

Swallow his owne death, hearts-bane jealousie.

O give him many thanks, he’is courteous,

That in suspecting kindly warneth us.

Wee must not, as wee us’d, flout openly,

In scoffing ridles, his deformitie;

Nor at his boord together being fatt,

With words, nor touch, scarce lookes adulterate.

Nor when he swolne, and pamper’d with great fare,

Sits downe, and snorts, cag’d in his basket chaire,

Must wee usurpe his owne bed any more,

Nor kisse and play in his house, as before.

Now I see many dangers; for that is

His realme, his castle, and his diocesse.

But if, as envious men, which would revile

Their Prince, or coyne his gold, themselves exile

Into another countrie,’and doe it there,

Wee play’in another house, what should we feare?

There we will scorne his houshold policies,

His seely plots, and pensionary spies,

As the inhabitants of Thames right side

Do Londons Major; or Germans, the Popes pride.

1635—54

ELEGIE II

The Anagram.

MARRY, and love thy Flavia, for, shee

Hath all things, whereby others beautious bee,

For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great,

Though they be Ivory, yet her teeth be jeat,

Though they be dimme, yet she is light enough,

And though her harsh haire fall, her skinne is rough;

What though her cheeks be yellow, her haire’s red,

Give her thine, and she hath a maydenhead.

These things are beauties elements, where these

Meet in one, that one must, as perfect, please.

If red and white and each good quality

Be in thy wench, ne’r aske where it doth lye.

In buying things perfum’d, we aske; if there

Be muske and amber in it, but not where.

Though all her parts be not in th’usuall place,

She’hath yet an Anagram of a good face.

If we might put the letters but one way,

In the leane dearth of words, what could wee say?

When by the Gamut some Musitions make

A perfect song, others will undertake,

By the same Gamut chang’d, to equall it.

Things simply good, can never be unfit.

She’s faire as any, if all be like her,

And if none bee, then she is singular.

All love is wonder; if wee justly doe

Account her wonderfull, why not lovely too?

Love built on beauty, soone as beauty, dies,

Chuse this face, chang’d by no deformities.

Women are all like Angels; the faire be

Like those which fell to worse; but such as shee,

Like to good Angels, nothing can impaire:

«Tis lesse griefe to be foule, then to have beene faire.

For one nights revels, silke and gold we chuse,

But, in long journeyes, cloth, and leather use.

Beauty is barren oft; best husbands say,

There is best land, where there is foulest way.

Oh what a soveraigne Plaister will shee bee,

If thy past sinnes have taught thee jealousie!

Here needs no spies, nor eunuches; her commit

Safe to thy foes; yea, to a Marmosit.

When Belgiaes citties, the round countries drowne,

That durty foulenesse guards, and armes the towne:

So doth her face guard her; and so, for thee,

Which, forc’d by businesse, absent oft must bee,

Shee, whose face, like clouds, turnes the day to night,

Who, mightier then the sea, makes Moores seem white,

Who, though seaven yeares, she in the Stews had laid,

A Nunnery durst receive, and thinke a maid,

And though in childbeds labour she did lie,

Midwifes would sweare, ’twere but a tympanie,

Whom, if shee accuse her selfe, I credit lesse

Then witches, which impossibles confesse,

Whom Dildoes, Bedstaves, and her Velvet Glasse

Would be as loath to touch as Joseph was:

One like none, and lik’d of none, fittest were,

For, things in fashion every man will weare.

1635—54

ELEGIE III

Change.

A lthough thy hand and faith, and good workes too,

Have seal’d thy love which nothing should undoe,

Yea though thou fall backe, that apostasie

Confirme thy love; yet much, much I feare thee.

Women are like the Arts, forc’d unto none,

Open to’all searchers, unpriz’d, if unknowne.

If I have caught a bird, and let him flie,

Another fouler using these meanes, as I,

May catch the same bird; and, as these things bee,

Women are made for men, not him, nor mee.

Foxes and goats; all beasts change when they please,

Shall women, more hot, wily, wild then these,

Be bound to one man, and did Nature then

Idly make them apter to’endure then men?

They’are our clogges, not their owne; if a man bee

Chain’d to a galley, yet the galley’is free;

Who hath a plow-land, casts all his seed corne there,

And yet allowes his ground more corne should beare;

Though Danuby into the sea must flow,

The sea receives the Rhene, Volga, and Po.

By nature, which gave it, this liberty

Thou lov’st, but Oh! canst thou love it and mee?

Likenesse glues love: and if that thou so doe,

To make us like and love, must I change too?

More then thy hate, I hate’it, rather let mee

Allow her change, then change as oft as shee,

And soe not teach, but force my’opinion

To love not any one, nor every one.

To live in one land, is captivitie,

To runne all countries, a wild roguery;

Waters stincke soone, if in one place they bide,

And in the vast sea are more putrifi’d:

But when they kisse one banke, and leaving this

Never looke backe, but the next banke doe kisse,

Then are they purest;

Change’is the nursery

Of musicke, joy, life, and eternity.

1635—54

ELEGIE IV

The Perfume.

ONCE, and but once found in thy company,

All thy suppos’d escapes are laid on mee;

And as a thiefe at barre, is question’d there

By all the men, that have beene rob’d that yeare,

So am I, (by this traiterous meanes surpriz’d)

By thy Hydroptique father catechiz’d.

Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,

As though he came to kill a Cockatrice,

Though hee hath oft sworne, that hee would remove

Thy beauties beautie, and food of our love,

Hope of his goods, if I with thee were seene,

Yet close and secret, as our soules, we’have beene.

Though thy immortall mother which doth lye

Still buried in her bed, yet will not dye,

Takes this advantage to sleepe out day-light,

And watch thy entries, and returnes all night,

And, when she takes thy hand, and would seeme kind,

Doth search what rings, and armelets she can finde,

And kissing notes the colour of thy face,

And fearing least thou’art swolne, doth thee embrace;

To trie if thou long, doth name strange meates,

And notes thy palenesse, blushing, sighs, and sweats;

And politiquely will to thee confesse

The sinnes of her owne youths ranke lustinesse;

Yet love these Sorceries did remove, and move

Thee to gull thine owne mother for my love.

Thy little brethren, which like Faiery Sprights

Oft skipt into our chamber, those sweet nights,

And kist, and ingled on thy fathers knee,

Were brib’d next day, to tell what they did see:

The grim eight-foot-high iron-bound serving-man,

That oft names God in oathes, and onely than,

He that to barre the first gate, doth as wide

As the great Rhodian Colossus stride,

Which, if in hell no other paines there were,

Makes mee feare hell, because he must be there:

Though by thy father he were hir’d to this,

Could never witnesse any touch or kisse.

But Oh, too common ill, I brought with mee

That, which betray’d mee to my enemie:

A loud perfume, which at my entrance cryed

Even at thy fathers nose, so were wee spied.

When, like a tyran King, that in his bed

Smelt gunpowder, the pale wretch shivered.

Had it beene some bad smell, he would have thought

That his owne feet, or breath, that smell had wrought.

But as wee in our Ile emprisoned,

Where cattell onely,’and diverse dogs are bred,

The pretious Vnicornes, strange monsters call,

So thought he good, strange, that had none at all.

I taught my silkes, their whistling to forbeare,

Even my opprest shoes, dumbe and speechlesse were,

Onely, thou bitter sweet, whom I had laid

Next mee, mee traiterously hast betraid,

And unsuspected hast invisibly

At once fled unto him, and staid with mee.

Base excrement of earth, which dost confound

Sense, from distinguishing the sicke from sound;

By thee the seely Amorous sucks his death

By drawing in a leprous harlots breath;

By thee, the greatest staine to mans estate

Falls on us, to be call’d effeminate;

Though you be much lov’d in the Princes hall,

There, things that seeme, exceed substantiall;

Gods, when yee fum’d on altars, were pleas’d well

Because you’were burnt, not that they lik’d your smell;

You’are loathsome all, being taken simply alone,

Shall wee love ill things joyn’d, and hate each one?

If you were good, your good doth soone decay;

And you are rare, that takes the good away.

All my perfumes, I give most willingly

To’embalme thy fathers corse; What? will hee die?

ELEGIE V

His Picture.

H ERE take my Picture; though I bid farewell, Thine, in my heart, where my soule dwels, shall dwell. «Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more
When wee are shadowes both, then’twas before. 5When weather-beaten I come backe; my hand, Perhaps with rude oares torne, or Sun beams tann’d, My face and brest of hairecloth, and my head
With cares rash sodaine stormes, being o’rspread, [page 87]
My body’a sack of bones, broken within, 10And powders blew staines scatter’d on my skinne; If rivall fooles taxe thee to’have lov’d a man, So foule, and course, as, Oh, I may seeme than, This shall say what I was: and thou shalt say, Doe his hurts reach mee? doth my worth decay?
15Or doe they reach his judging minde, that hee
Should now love lesse, what hee did love to see?
That which in him was faire and delicate, Was but the milke, which in loves childish state
Did nurse it: who now is growne strong enough
20To feed on that, which to disused tasts seemes tough.

ELEGIE VI

OH, let mee not serve so, as those men serve Whom honours smoakes at once fatten and sterve; Poorely enrich’t with great mens words or lookes; Nor so write my name in thy loving bookes 5As those Idolatrous flatterers, which still
Their Princes stiles, with many Realmes fulfill
[page 88]
Whence they no tribute have, and where no sway. Such services I offer as shall pay
Themselves, I hate dead names: Oh then let mee
10Favorite in Ordinary, or no favorite bee. When my Soule was in her owne body sheath’d, Nor yet by oathes betroth’d, nor kisses breath’d
Into my Purgatory, faithlesse thee, Thy heart seem’d waxe, and steele thy constancie: 15So, carelesse flowers strow’d on the waters face, The curled whirlepooles suck, smack, and embrace, Yet drowne them; so, the tapers beamie eye
Amorously twinkling, beckens the giddie flie, Yet burnes his wings; and such the devill is, 20Scarce visiting them, who are intirely his. When I behold a streame, which, from the spring, Doth with doubtfull melodious murmuring, Or in a speechlesse slumber, calmely ride
Her wedded channels bosome, and then chide
25And bend her browes, and swell if any bough
Do but stoop downe, or kisse her upmost brow; Yet, if her often gnawing kisses winne
The traiterous banke to gape, and let her in, She rusheth violently, and doth divorce
30Her from her native, and her long-kept course, And rores, and braves it, and in gallant scorne, In flattering eddies promising retorne, She flouts the channell, who thenceforth is drie; Then say I; that is shee, and this am I. 35Yet let not thy deepe bitternesse beget
Carelesse despaire in mee, for that will whet
My minde to scorne; and Oh, love dull’d with paine
[page 89]
Was ne’r so wise, nor well arm’d as disdaine. Then with new eyes I shall survay thee,’and spie
40Death in thy cheekes, and darknesse in thine eye. Though hope bred faith and love; thus taught, I shall
As nations do from Rome, from thy love fall. My hate shall outgrow thine, and utterly
I will renounce thy dalliance: and when I
45Am the Recusant, in that resolute state, What hurts it mee to be’excommunicate?

ELEGIE VII

NATURES lay Ideot, I taught thee to love, And in that sophistrie, Oh, thou dost prove
Too subtile: Foole, thou didst not understand
The mystique language of the eye nor hand: 5Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the aire
Of sighes, and say, this lies, this sounds despaire: Nor by the’eyes water call a maladie
Desperately hot, or changing feaverously. I had not taught thee then, the Alphabet
f flowers, how they devisefully being set
And bound up, might with speechlesse secrecie
Deliver arrands mutely, and mutually. [page 90]
Remember since all thy words us’d to bee
To every suitor; I, if my friends agree; 15Since, household charmes, thy husbands name to teach, Were all the love trickes, that thy wit could reach; And since, an houres discourse could scarce have made
One answer in thee, and that ill arraid
In broken proverbs, and torne sentences. 20Thou art not by so many duties his, That from the worlds Common having sever’d thee, Inlaid thee, neither to be seene, nor see, As mine: who have with amorous delicacies
Refin’d thee’into a blis-full Paradise. 25Thy graces and good words my creatures bee; I planted knowledge and lifes tree in thee, Which Oh, shall strangers taste? Must I alas
Frame and enamell Plate, and drinke in Glasse?
Chafe waxe for others seales? breake a colts force
30And leave him then, beeing made a ready horse?

ELEGIE VIII

The Comparison.

A S the sweet sweat of Roses in a Still, As that which from chaf’d muskats pores doth trill, As the Almighty Balme of th’early East, Such are the sweat drops of my Mistris breast, 5And on her 〈brow〉 her skin such lustre sets, They seeme no sweat drops, but pearle coronets. [page 91]
Ranke sweaty froth thy Mistresse’s brow defiles, Like spermatique issue of ripe menstruous boiles, Or like the skumme, which, by needs lawlesse law
10Enforc’d, Sanserra’s starved men did draw
From parboild shooes, and bootes, and all the rest
Which were with any soveraigne fatnes blest, And like vile lying stones in saffrond tinne, Or warts, or wheales, they hang upon her skinne. 15Round as the world’s her head, on every side, Like to the fatall Ball which fell on Ide, Or that whereof God had such jealousie, As, for the ravishing thereof we die. Thy head is like a rough-hewne statue of jeat, 20Where marks for eyes, nose, mouth, are yet scarce set; Like the first Chaos, or flat seeming face
Of Cynthia, when th’earths shadowes her embrace. Like Proserpines white beauty-keeping chest, Or Joues best fortunes urne, is her faire brest. 25Thine’s like worme eaten trunkes, cloth’d in seals skin, Or grave, that’s dust without, and stinke within. And like that slender stalke, at whose end stands
The wood-bine quivering, are her armes and hands. Like rough bark’d elmboughes, or the russet skin
30Of men late scurg’d for madnes, or for sinne, Like Sun-parch’d quarters on the citie gate, Such is thy tann’d skins lamentable state. And like a bunch of ragged carrets stand
The short swolne fingers of thy gouty hand. 35Then like the Chymicks masculine equall fire, Which in the Lymbecks warme wombe doth inspire
Into th’earths worthlesse durt a soule of gold, [page 92]
Such cherishing heat her best lov’d part doth hold. Thine’s like the dread mouth of a fired gunne, 40Or like hot liquid metalls newly runne
Into clay moulds, or like to that Ætna
Where round about the grasse is burnt away. Are not your kisses then as filthy, and more, As a worme sucking an invenom’d sore?
45Doth not thy fearefull hand in feeling quake, As one which gath’ring flowers, still feares a snake?
Is not your last act harsh, and violent, As when a Plough a stony ground doth rent?
So kisse good Turtles, so devoutly nice
50Are Priests in handling reverent sacrifice, And such in searching wounds the Surgeon is
As wee, when wee embrace, or touch, or kisse. Leave her, and I will leave comparing thus, She, and comparisons are odious.

1635—54:

ELEGIE IX

The Autumnall

NO Spring, nor Summer Beauty hath such grace, As I have seen in one Autumnall face. Yong Beauties force our love, and that’s a Rape, This doth but counsaile, yet you cannot scape. [page 93] 5If t’were a shame to love, here t’were no shame, Affection here takes Reverences name. Were her first yeares the Golden Age; That’s true, But now shee’s gold oft tried, and ever new. That was her torrid and inflaming time, 10This is her tolerable Tropique clyme. Faire eyes, who askes more heate then comes from hence, He in a fever wishes pestilence. Call not these wrinkles, graves; If graves they were, They were Loves graves; for else he is no where. 15Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit
Vow’d to this trench, like an Anachorit. And here, till hers, which must be his death, come, He doth not digge a Grave, but build a Tombe. Here dwells he, though he sojourne ev’ry where, 20In Progresse, yet his standing house is here. Here, where still Evening is; not noone, nor night; Where no voluptuousnesse, yet all delight. In all her words, unto all hearers fit, You may at Revels, you at Counsaile, sit. 25This is loves timber, youth his under-wood; There he, as wine in Iune, enrages blood, Which then comes seasonabliest, when our tast
And appetite to other things, is past. Xerxes strange Lydian love, the Platane tree, 30Was lov’d for age, none being so large as shee, Or else because, being yong, nature did blesse
Her youth with ages glory, Barrennesse. If we love things long sought, Age is a thing
Which we are fifty yeares in compassing. [page 94]
35If transitory things, which soone decay, Age must be lovelyest at the latest day. But name not Winter-faces, whose skin’s slacke; Lanke, as an unthrifts purse; but a soules sacke; Whose Eyes seeke light within, for all here’s shade; 40Whose mouthes are holes, rather worne out, then made; Whose every tooth to a severall place is gone, To vexe their soules at Resurrection; Name not these living Deaths-heads unto mee, For these, not Ancient, but Antique be. 45I hate extreames; yet I had rather stay
With Tombs, then Cradles, to weare out a day. Since such loves naturall lation is, may still
My love descend, and journey downe the hill, Not panting after growing beauties, so, 50I shall ebbe out with them, who home-ward goe.

ELEGIE X

The Dreame.

IMAGE of her whom I love, more then she, Whose faire impression in my faithfull heart, Makes mee her Medall, and makes her love mee, As Kings do coynes, to which their stamps impart 5The value: goe, and take my heart from hence, Which now is growne too great and good for me: Honours oppresse weake spirits, and our sense
Strong objects dull; the more, the lesse wee see. When you are gone, and Reason gone with you, 10Then Fantasie is Queene and Soule, and all; She can present joyes meaner then you do; Convenient, and more proportionall. So, if I dreame I have you, I have you, For, all our joyes are but fantasticall. 15And so I scape the paine, for paine is true; And sleepe which locks up sense, doth lock out all. After a such fruition I shall wake, And, but the waking, nothing shall repent; And shall to love more thankfull Sonnets make, 20Then if more honour, teares, and paines were spent. But dearest heart, and dearer image stay; Alas, true joyes at best are dreame enough; Though you stay here you passe too fast away: For even at first lifes Taper is a snuffe. 25Fill’d with her love, may I be rather grown
Mad with much heart, then ideott with none.

ELEGIE XI

The Bracelet.

Vpon the losse of his Mistresses

Chaine, for which he made satisfaction.

NOT that in colour it was like thy haire,

For Armelets of that thou maist let me weare:

Nor that thy hand it oft embrac’d and kist,

For so it had that good, which oft I mist:

Nor for that silly old moralitie,

That as these linkes were knit, our love should bee:

Mourne I that I thy seavenfold chaine have lost;

Nor for the luck sake; but the bitter cost.

O, shall twelve righteous Angels, which as yet

No leaven of vile soder did admit;

Nor yet by any way have straid or gone

From the first state of their Creation;

Angels, which heaven commanded to provide

All things to me, and be my faithfull guide;

To gaine new friends, t’appease great enemies;

To comfort my soule, when I lie or rise;

Shall these twelve innocents, by thy severe

Sentence (dread judge) my sins great burden beare?

Shall they be damn’d, and in the furnace throwne, 2

And punisht for offences not their owne?

They save not me, they doe not ease my paines,

When in that hell they’are burnt and tyed in chains.

Were they but Crownes of France,

I cared not,

For, most of these, their naturall Countreys rot

I think possesseth, they come here to us,

So pale, so lame, so leane, so ruinous;

And howsoe’r French Kings most Christian be,

Their Crownes are circumcis’d most Iewishly.

Or were they Spanish Stamps, still travelling,

That are become as Catholique as their King,

Those unlickt beare-whelps, unfil’d pistolets

That (more than Canon shot) availes or lets;

Which negligently left unrounded, looke

Like many angled figures, in the booke

Of some great Conjurer that would enforce

Nature, as these doe justice, from her course;

Which, as the soule quickens head, feet and heart,

As streames, like veines, run through th’earth’s every part,

Visit all Countries, and have slily made

Gorgeous France, ruin’d, ragged and decay’d;

Scotland, which knew no State, proud in one day:

And mangled seventeen-headed Belgia.

Or were it such gold as that wherewithall

Almighty Chymiques from each minerall,

Having by subtle fire a soule out-pull’d;

Are dirtely and desperately gull’d:

I would not spit to quench the fire they’are in,

For, they are guilty of much hainous Sin.

But, shall my harmlesse angels perish? Shall

I lose my guard, my ease, my food, my all?

Much hope which they should nourish will be dead,

Much of my able youth, and lustyhead

Will vanish; if thou love let them alone,

For thou wilt love me lesse when they are gone;

And be content that some lowd squeaking Cryer

Well-pleas’d with one leane thred-bare groat, for hire,

May like a devill roare through every street;

And gall the finders conscience, if they meet.

Or let mee creepe to some dread Conjurer,

That with phantastique scheames fils full much paper;

Which hath divided heaven in tenements,

And with whores, theeves, and murderers stuft his rents,

So full, that though hee passe them all in sinne,

He leaves himselfe no roome to enter in.

But if, when all his art and time is spent,

Hee say ’twill ne’r be found; yet be content;

Receive from him that doome ungrudgingly,

Because he is the mouth of destiny.

Thou say’st (alas) the gold doth still remaine,

Though it be chang’d, and put into a chaine;

So in the first falne angels, resteth still

Wisdome and knowledge; but,’tis turn’d to ill:

As these should doe good works; and should provide

Necessities; but now must nurse thy pride.

And they are still bad angels; Mine are none;

For, forme gives being, and their forme is gone:

Pitty these Angels; yet their dignities

Passe Vertues, Powers, and Principalities.

But, thou art resolute; Thy will be done!

Yet with such anguish, as her onely sonne

The Mother in the hungry grave doth lay,

Vnto the fire these Martyrs I betray.

Good soules, (for you give life to every thing)

Good Angels, (for good messages you bring)

Destin’d you might have beene to such an one,

As would have lov’d and worship’d you alone:

One that would suffer hunger, nakednesse,

Yea death, ere he would make your number lesse.

But, I am guilty of your sad decay;

May your few fellowes longer with me stay.

But ô thou wretched finder whom I hate

So, that I almost pitty thy estate:

Gold being the heaviest metal amongst all,

May my most heavy curse upon thee fall:

Here fetter’d, manacled, and hang’d in chains,

First mayst thou bee; then chaind to hellish paines;

Or be with forraine gold brib’d to betray

Thy Countrey, and faile both of that and thy pay.

May the next thing thou stoop’st to reach, containe

Poyson, whose nimble fume rot thy moist braine;

Or libels, or some interdicted thing,

Which negligently kept, thy ruine bring.

Lust-bred diseases rot thee; and dwell with thee

Itching desire, and no abilitie.

May all the evils that gold ever wrought;

All mischiefes that all devils ever thought;

Want after plenty; poore and gouty age;

The plagues of travellers; love; marriage

Afflict thee, and at thy lives last moment,

May thy swolne sinnes themselves to thee present.

But, I forgive; repent thee honest man:

Gold is Restorative, restore it then:

But if from it thou beest loath to depart,

Because ’tis cordiall, would twere at thy heart.

ELEGIE XII

His parting from her.

SINCE she must go, and I must mourn, come Night,

Environ me with darkness, whilst I write:

Shadow that hell unto me, which alone

I am to suffer when my Love is gone.

Alas the darkest Magick cannot do it,

Thou and greate Hell to boot are shadows to it.

Should Cinthia quit thee,

Venus, and each starre,

It would not forme one thought dark as mine are.

I could lend thee obscureness now, and say,

Out of my self,

There should be no more Day,

Such is already my felt want of sight,

Did not the fires within me force a light.

Oh Love, that fire and darkness should be mixt,

Or to thy Triumphs soe strange torments fixt?

Is’t because thou thy self art blind, that wee

Thy Martyrs must no more each other see?

Or tak’st thou pride to break us on the wheel,

And view old Chaos in the Pains we feel?

Or have we left undone some mutual Right,

Through holy fear, that merits thy despight?

No, no. The falt was mine, impute it to me,

Or rather to conspiring destinie,

Which (since I lov’d for forme before) decreed,

That I should suffer when I lov’d indeed:

And therefore now, sooner then I can say,

I saw the golden fruit, ’tis rapt away.

Or as I had watcht one drop in a vast stream,

And I left wealthy only in a dream.

Yet Love, thou’rt blinder then thy self in this,

To vex my Dove-like friend for my amiss:

And, where my own sad truth may expiate

Thy wrath, to make her fortune run my fate:

So blinded Justice doth, when Favorites fall,

Strike them, their house, their friends, their followers all.

Was’t not enough that thou didst dart thy fires

Into our blouds, inflaming our desires,

And made’st us sigh and glow, and pant, and burn,

And then thy self into our flame did’st turn?

Was’t not enough, that thou didst hazard us

To paths in love so dark, so dangerous:

And those so ambush’d round with houshold spies,

And over all, thy husbands towring eyes

That flam’d with oylie sweat of jealousie:

Yet went we not still on with Constancie?

Have we not kept our guards, like spie on spie?

Had correspondence whilst the foe stood by?

Stoln (more to sweeten them) our many blisses

Of meetings, conference, embracements, kisses?

Shadow’d with negligence our most respects?

Varied our language through all dialects,

Of becks, winks, looks, and often under-boards

Spoak dialogues with our feet far from our words?

 Have we prov’d all these secrets of our Art,

Yea, thy pale inwards, and thy panting heart?

And, after all this passed Purgatory,

Must sad divorce make us the vulgar story?

First let our eyes be rivited quite through

 Our turning brains, and both our lips grow to:

Let our armes clasp like Ivy, and our fear

Freese us together, that we may stick here,

Till Fortune, that would rive us, with the deed

Strain her eyes open, and it make them bleed:

For Love it cannot be, whom hitherto

I have accus’d, should such a mischief doe.

Oh Fortune, thou’rt not worth my least exclame,

 And plague enough thou hast in thy own shame.

Do thy great worst, my friend and I have armes,

Though not against thy strokes, against thy harmes.

Rend us in sunder, thou canst not divide

 Our bodies so, but that our souls are ty’d,

And we can love by letters still and gifts,

And thoughts and dreams; Love never wanteth shifts.

 I will not look upon the quickning Sun,

But straight her beauty to my sense shall run; 75The ayre shall note her soft, the fire most pure; Water suggest her clear, and the earth sure. Time shall not lose our passages; the Spring
How fresh our love was in the beginning; The Summer how it ripened in the eare; 80And Autumn, what our golden harvests were. The Winter I’ll not think on to spite thee, But count it a lost season, so shall shee. And dearest Friend, since we must part, drown night
With hope of Day, burthens well born are light. 85Though cold and darkness longer hang somewhere, Yet Phoebus equally lights all the Sphere. And what he cannot in like Portions pay, The world enjoyes in Mass, and so we may. Be then ever your self, and let no woe
90Win on your health, your youth, your beauty: so
Declare your self base fortunes Enemy, No less by your contempt then constancy: That I may grow enamoured on your mind, When my own thoughts I there reflected find. [page 104]
95For this to th’comfort of my Dear I vow, My Deeds shall still be what my words are now; The Poles shall move to teach me ere I start; And when I change my Love, I’ll change my heart; Nay, if I wax but cold in my desire, 100Think, heaven hath motion lost, and the world, fire: Much more I could, but many words have made
That, oft, suspected which men would perswade; Take therefore all in this: I love so true, As I will never look for less in you.

ELEGIE XIII

Iulia.

HARKE newes, ô envy, thou shalt heare descry’d

My Iulia; who as yet was ne’r envy’d.

To vomit gall in slander, swell her vaines

With calumny, that hell it selfe disdaines,

Is her continuall practice; does her best,

To teare opinion even out of the brest

Of dearest friends, and (which is worse than vilde)

Sticks jealousie in wedlock; her owne childe

Scapes not the showres of envie, To repeate

The monstrous fashions, how, were, alive, to eate

Deare reputation. Would to God she were

But halfe so loath to act vice, as to heare

My milde reproofe. Liv’d Mantuan now againe,

That fœmall Mastix, to limme with his penne

This she Chymera, that hath eyes of fire,

Burning with anger, anger feeds desire,

Tongued like the night-crow, whose ill boding cries

Give out for nothing but new injuries,

Her breath like to the juice in Tenarus

That blasts the springs, though ne’r so prosperous,

Her hands, I know not how, us’d more to spill

The food of others, then her selfe to fill.

But oh her minde, that Orcus, which includes

Legions of mischiefs, countlesse multitudes

Of formlesse curses, projects unmade up,

Abuses yet unfashion’d, thoughts corrupt,

Mishapen Cavils, palpable untroths,

Inevitable errours, self-accusing oaths:

These, like those Atoms swarming in the Sunne,

Throng in her bosome for creation.

I blush to give her halfe her due; yet say,

No poyson’s halfe so bad as Iulia.

ELEGIE XIV

A Tale of a Citizen and his Wife.

Ising no harme good sooth to any wight, To Lord or foole, Cuckold, begger or knight, To peace-teaching Lawyer, Proctor, or brave
Reformed or reduced Captaine, Knave, [page 106] 5Officer, Iugler, or Iustice of peace, Iuror or Iudge; I touch no fat sowes grease, I am no Libeller, nor will be any, But (like a true man) say there are too many. I feare not ore tenus; for my tale, 10Nor Count nor Counsellour will redd or pale. A Citizen and his wife the other day
Both riding on one horse, upon the way
I overtooke, the wench a pretty peate, And (by her eye) well fitting for the feate. I saw the lecherous Citizen turne backe
His head, and on his wifes lip steale a smacke, Whence apprehending that the man was kinde, Riding before, to kisse his wife behinde, To get acquaintance with him I began
20To sort discourse fit for so fine a man: I ask’d the number of the Plaguy Bill, Ask’d if the Custome Farmers held out still, Of the Virginian plot, and whether Ward
The traffique of the I〈n〉land seas had marr’d, 25Whether the Brittaine Burse did fill apace, And likely were to give th’Exchange disgrace; Of new-built Algate, and the More-field crosses, Of store of Bankerouts, and poore Merchants losses
I urged him to speake; But he (as mute
30As an old Courtier worne to his last suite)
Replies with onely yeas and nayes; At last
(To fit his element) my theame I cast
On Tradesmens gaines; that set his tongue agoing: Alas, good sir (quoth he) There is no doing
35In Court nor City now; she smil’d and I, And (in my conscience) both gave him the lie
In one met thought: but he went on apace, And at the present time with such a face
He rail’d, as fray’d me; for he gave no praise, 40To any but my Lord of Essex dayes; Call’d those the age of action; true (quoth Hee)
There’s now as great an itch of bravery, And heat of taking up, but cold lay downe, For, put to push of pay, away they runne; 45Our onely City trades of hope now are
Bawd, Tavern-keeper, Whore and Scrivener; The much of Privileg’d kingsmen, and the store
Of fresh protections make the rest all poore; In the first state of their Creation, 50Though many stoutly stand, yet proves not one
A righteous pay-master. Thus ranne he on
In a continued rage: so void of reason
Seem’d his harsh talke, I sweat for feare of treason. And (troth) how could I lesse? when in the prayer
55For the protection of the wise Lord Major, And his wise brethrens worships, when one prayeth, He swore that none could say Amen with faith. To get him off from what I glowed to heare, (In happy time) an Angel did appeare, 60The bright Signe of a lov’d and wel-try’d Inne, Where many Citizens with their wives have bin
Well us’d and often; here I pray’d him stay, To take some due refreshment by the way. Looke how hee look’d that hid the gold (his hope)
65And at’s returne found nothing but a Rope, [page 108]
So he on me, refus’d and made away, Though willing she pleaded a weary day: I found my misse, struck hands, and praid him tell
(To hold acquaintance still) where he did dwell; 70He barely nam’d the street, promis’d the Wine, But his kinde wife gave me the very Signe.

ELEGIE XV

The Expostulation.

TO make the doubt cleare, that no woman’s true, Was it my fate to prove it strong in you?
Thought I, but one had breathed purest aire, And must she needs be false because she’s faire? 5Is it your beauties marke, or of your youth, Or your perfection, not to study truth?

Or thinke you heaven is deafe, or hath no eyes?

Or those it hath, smile at your perjuries?

Are vowes so cheape with women, or the matter

Whereof they are made, that they are writ in water,

And blowne away with winde? Or doth their breath

(Both hot and cold at once) make life and death?

Who could have thought so many accents sweet

Form’d into words, so many sighs should meete

As from our hearts, so many oathes, and teares

Sprinkled among, (all sweeter by our feares

And the divine impression of stolne kisses,

That seal’d the rest) should now prove empty blisses?

Did you draw bonds to forfet? signe to breake?

Or must we reade you quite from what you speake,

And finde the truth out the wrong way? or must

Hee first desire you false, would wish you just?

O I prophane, though most of women be

This kinde of beast, my thought shall except thee;

My dearest love, though froward jealousie,

With circumstance might urge thy’inconstancie,

Sooner I’ll thinke the Sunne will cease to cheare

The teeming earth, and that forget to beare,

Sooner that rivers will runne back, or Thames

With ribs of Ice in June would bind his streames,

Or Nature, by whose strength the world endures,

Would change her course, before you alter yours.

But O that treacherous breast to whom weake you

Did trust our Counsells, and wee both may rue,

Having his falshood found too late, ’twas hee

That made me cast you guilty, and you me,

Whilst he, black wretch, betray’d each simple word

Wee spake, unto the cunning of a third.

Curst may hee be, that so our love hath slaine,

And wander on the earth, wretched as Cain,

Wretched as hee, and not deserve least pitty;

In plaguing him, let misery be witty;

Let all eyes shunne him, and hee shunne each eye,

Till hee be noysome as his infamie;

May he without remorse deny God thrice,

And not be trusted more on his Soules price;

And after all selfe torment, when hee dyes,

May Wolves teare out his heart, Vultures his eyes,

Swine eate his bowels, and his falser tongue

That utter’d all, be to some Raven flung,

And let his carrion coarse be a longer feast

To the Kings dogges, then any other beast.

Now have I curst, let us our love revive;

In mee the flame was never more alive;

I could beginne againe to court and praise,

And in that pleasure lengthen the short dayes

Of my lifes lease; like Painters that do take

Delight, not in made worke, but whiles they make;

I could renew those times, when first I saw

Love in your eyes, that gave my tongue the law

To like what you lik’d; and at maskes and playes

Commend the selfe same Actors, the same wayes;

Aske how you did, and often with intent

Of being officious, be impertinent;

All which were such soft pastimes, as in these

Love was as subtilly catch’d, as a disease;

But being got it is a treasure sweet,

Which to defend is harder then to get:

And ought not be prophan’d on either part,

For though’tis got by chance, ’tis kept by art.

ELEGIE XVI

On his Mistris.

BY our first strange and fatall interview,

By all desires which thereof did ensue,

By our long starving hopes, by that remorse

Which my words masculine perswasive force

Begot in thee, and by the memory

Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatned me,

I calmly beg: But by thy fathers wrath,

By all paines, which want and divorcement hath,

I conjure thee, and all the oathes which I

And thou have sworne to seale joynt constancy,

Here I unsweare, and overswear them thus,

Thou shalt not love by wayes so dangerous.

Temper, ô faire Love, loves impetuous rage,

Be my true Mistris still, not my faign’d Page;

’ll goe, and, by thy kinde leave, leave behinde

Thee, onely worthy to nurse in my minde,

Thirst to come backe; ô if thou die before,

My soule from other lands to thee shall soare.

Thy (else Almighty) beautie cannot move

Rage from the Seas, nor thy love teach them love,

Nor tame wilde Boreas harshnesse;

Thou hast reade

How roughly hee in peeces shivered

Faire Orithea, whom he swore he lov’d.

Fall ill or good, ’tis madnesse to have prov’d

Dangers unurg’d; Feed on this flattery,

That absent Lovers one in th’other be.

Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change

Thy bodies habite, nor mindes; bee not strange

To thy selfe onely;

All will spie in thy face

A blushing womanly discovering grace;

Richly cloath’d Apes, are call’d Apes, and as soone

Ecclips’d as bright we call the Moone the Moone.

Men of France, changeable Camelions,

Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions,

Loves fuellers, and the rightest company

Of Players, which upon the worlds stage be,

Will quickly know thee, and no lesse, alas!

Th’indifferent Italian, as we passe

His warme land, well content to thinke thee Page,

Will hunt thee with such lust, and hideous rage,

As Lots faire guests were vext. But none of these

Nor spungy hydroptique Dutch shall thee displease,

If thou stay here. O stay here, for, for thee

England is onely a worthy Gallerie,

To walke in expectation, till from thence

Our greatest King call thee to his presence.

When I am gone, dreame me some happinesse,

Nor let thy lookes our long hid love confesse,

Nor praise, nor dispraise me, nor blesse nor curse

Openly loves force, nor in bed fright thy Nurse

With midnights startings, crying out, oh, oh

Nurse, ô my love is slaine, I saw him goe

O’r the white Alpes alone; I saw him I,

Assail’d, fight, taken, stabb’d, bleed, fall, and die.

Augure me better chance, except dread Iove

Thinke it enough for me to’have had thy love.

1635—54

ELEGIE XVII

Variety.

THE heavens rejoyce in motion, why should I

Abjure my so much lov’d variety,

And not with many youth and love divide?

Pleasure is none, if not diversifi’d:

The sun that sitting in the chaire of light

Sheds flame into what else so ever doth seem bright,

Is not contented at one Signe to Inne,

But ends his year and with a new beginnes.

All things doe willingly in change delight,

The fruitfull mother of our appetite:

Rivers the clearer and more pleasing are,

Where their fair spreading streames run wide and farr;

And a dead lake that no strange bark doth greet,

Corrupts it self and what doth live in it.

Let no man tell me such a one is faire,

And worthy all alone my love to share.

Nature in her hath done the liberall part

Of a kinde Mistresse, and imploy’d her art

To make her loveable, and I aver

Him not humane that would turn back from her:

I love her well, and would, if need were, dye

To doe her service. But followes it that I

Must serve her onely, when I may have choice

Of other beauties, and in change rejoice?

The law is hard, and shall not have my voice.

The last I saw in all extreames is faire,

And holds me in the Sun-beames of her haire;

Her nymph-like features such agreements have

That I could venture with her to the grave:

Another’s brown, I like her not the worse,

Her tongue is soft and takes me with discourse.

Others, for that they well descended are,

Do in my love obtain as large a share;

And though they be not fair, ’tis much with mee

To win their love onely for their degree.

And though I faile of my required ends,

The attempt is glorious and it self commends.

How happy were our Syres in ancient times,

Who held plurality of loves no crime!

With them it was accounted charity
To stirre up race of all indifferently; Kindreds were not exempted from the bands: Which with the Persian still in usage stands. Women were then no sooner asked then won, 45And what they did was honest and well done. But since this title honour hath been us’d, Our weake credulity hath been abus’d; The golden laws of nature are repeald, Which our first Fathers in such reverence held; 50Our liberty’s revers’d, our Charter’s gone, And we’re made servants to opinion, A monster in no certain shape attir’d, And whose originall is much desir’d, Formlesse at first, but goeing on it fashions, 55And doth prescribe manners and laws to nations. Here love receiv’d immedicable harmes, And was dispoiled of his daring armes. A greater want then is his daring eyes, He lost those awfull wings with which he flies; 60His sinewy bow, and those immortall darts
Wherewith he’is wont to bruise resisting hearts. Onely some few strong in themselves and free
Retain the seeds of antient liberty, Following that part of Love although deprest, 65And make a throne for him within their brest, In spight of modern censures him avowing
Their Soveraigne, all service him allowing. Amongst which troop although I am the least, Yet equall in perfection with the best, 70I glory in subjection of his hand, Nor ever did decline his least command: For in whatever forme the message came

My heart did open and receive the same.

But time will in his course a point discry

When I this loved service must deny,

For our allegiance temporary is,

With firmer age returnes our liberties.

What time in years and judgement we repos’d,

Shall not so easily be to change dispos’d,

Nor to the art of severall eyes obeying;

But beauty with true worth securely weighing,

Which being found assembled in some one,

Wee’l love her ever, and love her alone.

ELEGIE XVIII

Loves Progress.

WHO ever loves, if he do not propose

The right true end of love, he’s one that goes

To sea for nothing but to make him sick:

Love is a bear-whelp born, if we o’re lick

Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,

We erre, and of a lump a monster make.

Were not a Calf a monster that were grown

Face’d like a man, though better then his own?

Perfection is in unitie: preferr

One woman first, and then one thing in her.

I, when I value gold, may think upon

The ductilness, the application,

The wholsomness, the ingenuitie,

From rust, from soil, from fire ever free:

But if I love it, ’tis because ’tis made

By our new nature (Use) the soul of trade.

All these in women we might think upon

(If women had them) and yet love but one.

Can men more injure women then to say

They love them for that, by which they’re not they?

Makes virtue woman? must I cool my bloud

Till I both be, and find one wise and good?

May barren Angels love so. But if we

Make love to woman; virtue is not she:

As beauty’is not nor wealth: He that strayes thus

From her to hers, is more adulterous,

Then if he took her maid. Search every spheare

And firmament, our Cupid is not there:

He’s an infernal god and under ground,

With Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound:

Men to such Gods, their sacrificing Coles

Did not in Altars lay, but pits and holes.

Although we see Celestial bodies move

Above the earth, the earth we Till and love:

So we her ayres contemplate, words and heart,

And virtues; but we love the Centrique part.

Nor is the soul more worthy, or more fit

For love, then this, as infinite as it.

But in attaining this desired place

How much they erre; that set out at the face?

The hair a Forest is of Ambushes,

Of springes, snares, fetters and manacles:

The brow becalms us when ’tis smooth and plain,

And when ’tis wrinckled, shipwracks us again.

Smooth, ’tis a Paradice, where we would have

Immortal stay, and wrinkled ’tis our grave.

The Nose (like to the first Meridian) runs

Not ’twixt an East and West, but ’twixt two suns;

It leaves a Cheek, a rosie Hemisphere

On either side, and then directs us where

Upon the Islands fortunate we fall,

(Not faynte Canaries, but Ambrosiall)

Her swelling lips;

To which when wee are come,

We anchor there, and think our selves at home,

For they seem all: there Syrens songs, and there

Wise Delphick Oracles do fill the ear;

There in a Creek where chosen pearls do swell,

The Remora, her cleaving tongue doth dwell.

These, and the glorious Promontory, her Chin

Ore past; and the streight Hellespont betweene

The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,

(Not of two Lovers, but two Loves the neasts)

Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine eye

Some Island moles may scattered there descry;

And Sailing towards her India, in that way

Shall at her fair Atlantick Navell stay;

Though thence the Current be thy Pilot made,

Yet ere thou be where thou wouldst be embay’d,

Thou shalt upon another Forest set,

Where many Shipwrack, and no further get.

When thou art there, consider what this chace

Mispent by thy beginning at the face.

Rather set out below; practice my Art,

Some Symetry the foot hath with that part

Which thou dost seek, and is thy Map for that

Lovely enough to stop, but not stay at:

Least subject to disguise and change it is;

Men say the Devil never can change his.

It is the Emblem that hath figured

Firmness; ’tis the first part that comes to bed.

Civilitie we see refin’d: the kiss

Which at the face began, transplanted is,

Since to the hand, since to the Imperial knee,

Now at the Papal foot delights to be:

If Kings think that the nearer way, and do

Rise from the foot, Lovers may do so too;

For as free Spheres move faster far then can

Birds, whom the air resists, so may that man

Which goes this empty and Ætherial way,

Then if at beauties elements he stay.

Rich Nature hath in women wisely made

Two purses, and their mouths aversely laid:

They then, which to the lower tribute owe,

That way which that Exchequer looks, must go:

He which doth not, his error is as great,

As who by Clyster gave the Stomack meat.

ELEGIE XIX

Going to Bed

C OME, Madam, come, all rest my powers defie,

Until I labour, I in labour lie.

The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,

Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heavens Zone glittering,

But a far fairer world incompassing.

Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,

That th’eyes of busie fooles may be stopt there.

Unlace your self, for that harmonious chyme,

Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.

Off with that happy busk, which I envie,

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off, such beautious state reveals,

As when from flowry meads th’hills shadow steales.

Off with that wyerie Coronet and shew

The haiery Diademe which on you doth grow:

Now off with those shooes, and then safely tread

In this loves hallow’d temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes, heaven’s Angels us’d to be

Receavd by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee

A heaven like Mahomets Paradise; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easly know,

By this these Angels from an evil sprite,

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

Licence my roaving hands, and let them go,

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O my America! my new-found-land,

My kingdome, safliest when with one man man’d,

My Myne of precious stones, My Emperie,

How blest am I in this discovering thee!

To enter in these bonds, is to be free;

Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.

Full nakedness!

All joyes are due to thee,

As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,

To taste whole joyes. Gems which you women use

Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in mens views,

That when a fools eye lighteth on a Gem,

His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.

Like pictures, or like books gay coverings made

For lay-men, are all women thus array’d;

Themselves are mystick books, which only wee

(Whom their imputed grace will dignifie)

Must see reveal’d.

Then since that I may know;

As liberally, as to a Midwife, shew

Thy self: cast all, yea, this white lynnen hence,

There is no pennance due to innocence.

To teach thee, I am naked first; why than

What needst thou have more covering then a man.

ELEGIE XX

Loves Warre.

TILL I have peace with thee, warr other men,

And when I have peace, can I leave thee then?

All other Warrs are scrupulous; Only thou

O fayr free Citty, maist thyselfe allowe

To any one: In Flanders, who can tell

Whether the Master presse; or men rebell?

Only we know, that which all Ideots say,

They beare most blows which come to part the fray.

France in her lunatique giddines did hate

Ever our men, yea and our God of late;

Yet she relyes upon our Angels well,

Which nere returne; no more then they which fell.

Sick Ireland is with a strange warr possest

Like to an Ague; now raging, now at rest;

Which time will cure: yet it must doe her good

If she were purg’d, and her head vayne let blood.

And Midas joyes our Spanish journeys give,

We touch all gold, but find no food to live.

And I should be in the hott parching clyme,

To dust and ashes turn’d before my time.

To mew me in a Ship, is to inthrall

Mee in a prison, that weare like to fall;

Or in a Cloyster; save that there men dwell

In a calme heaven, here in a swaggering hell.

Long voyages are long consumptions,

And ships are carts for executions.

Yea they are Deaths; Is’t not all one to flye

Into an other World, as t’is to dye?

Here let mee warr; in these armes lett mee lye;

Here lett mee parlee, batter, bleede, and dye.

Thyne armes imprison me, and myne armes thee;

Thy hart thy ransome is; take myne for mee. Other men war that they their rest may gayne; But wee will rest that wee may fight agayne. Those warrs the ignorant, these th’experienc’d love, There wee are alwayes under, here above. There Engins farr off breed a just true feare, Neere thrusts, pikes, stabs, yea bullets hurt not here. There lyes are wrongs; here safe uprightly lye; There men kill men, we’will make one by and by. Thou nothing; I not halfe so much shall do
In these Warrs, as they may which from us two
Shall spring. Thousands wee see which travaile not
To warrs; But stay swords, armes, and shott
To make at home; And shall not I do then
More glorious service, staying to make men?

Elegy XX &c. Ed

HEROICALL EPISTLE

Sapho to Philænis.

WHERE is that holy fire, which Verse is said

To have? is that inchanting force decai’d?

Verse that drawes Natures workes, from Natures law,

Thee, her best worke, to her worke cannot draw.

Have my teares quench’d my old Poetique fire;

Why quench’d they not as well, that of desire?

Thoughts, my mindes creatures, often are with thee,

But I, their maker, want their libertie.

Onely thine image, in my heart, doth sit,

But that is waxe, and fires environ it.

My fires have driven, thine have drawne it hence;

And I am rob’d of Picture, Heart, and Sense.

Dwells with me still mine irksome Memory,

Which, both to keepe, and lose, grieves equally.

That tells me’how faire thou art:

Thou art so faire,

As, gods, when gods to thee I doe compare,

Are grac’d thereby;

And to make blinde men see,

What things gods are, I say they’are like to thee. For, if we justly call each silly man
20A litle world, What shall we call thee than?
Thou art not soft, and cleare, and strait, and faire, As Down, as Stars, Cedars, and Lillies are, [page 125]
But thy right hand, and cheek, and eye, only
Are like thy other hand, and cheek, and eye. 25Such was my Phao awhile, but shall be never, As thou, wast, art, and, oh, maist be ever. Here lovers sweare in their Idolatrie, That I am such; but Griefe discolors me. And yet I grieve the lesse, least Griefe remove
30My beauty, and make me’unworthy of thy love. Plaies some soft boy with thee, oh there wants yet
A mutuall feeling which should sweeten it. His chinne, a thorny hairy unevennesse
Doth threaten, and some daily change possesse. 35Thy body is a naturall Paradise, In whose selfe, unmanur’d, all pleasure lies, Nor needs perfection; why shouldst thou than
Admit the tillage of a harsh rough man?
Men leave behinde them that which their sin showes, 40And are as theeves trac’d, which rob when it snows. But of our dallyance no more signes there are, Then fishes leave in streames, or Birds in aire. And betweene us all sweetnesse may be had; All, all that Nature yields, or Art can adde. 45My two lips, eyes, thighs, differ from thy two, But so, as thine from one another doe; And, oh, no more; the likenesse being such, Why should they not alike in all parts touch?
Hand to strange hand, lippe to lippe none denies; 50Why should they brest to brest, or thighs to thighs?
Likenesse begets such strange selfe flatterie, That touching my selfe, all seemes done to thee. My selfe I embrace, and mine owne hands I kisse, And amorously thanke my selfe for this. 55Me, in my glasse, I call thee; But alas,
When I would kisse, teares dimme mine eyes, and glasse. O cure this loving madnesse, and restore
Me to mee; thee, my halfe, my all, my more. So may thy cheekes red outweare scarlet dye, 60And their white, whitenesse of the Galaxy, So may thy mighty, amazing beauty move
Envy’in all women, and in all men, love, And so be change, and sicknesse, farre from thee, As thou by comming neere, keep’st them from me.

Heroicall Epistle.] In 1633 Sapho to Philaenis follows Basse’s Epitaph upon Shakespeare, and precedes The Annuntiation and Passion. In 1635 it was placed with some other miscellaneous and dubious poems among the Letters to severall Personages, where it has appeared in all subsequent editions. I have transferred it to the neighbourhood of the Elegies and given it the title which seems to describe exactly the genre to which it belongs. In JC it is entitled Elegie 18th. The other MSS. are A18, A25, O’F, N, P, TCC, TCD.

EPITHALAMIONS

OR

MARRIAGE SONGS.

An Epithalamion, Or mariage Song on the Lady Elizabeth, and Count Palatine being married on St. Valentines day.

I.

HAILE Bishop Valentine, whose day this is, All the Aire is thy Diocis, And all the chirping Choristers
And other birds are thy Parishioners, 5Thou marryest every yeare
The Lirique Larke, and the grave whispering Dove, The Sparrow that neglects his life for love, The household Bird, with the red stomacher, Thou mak’st the black bird speed as soone, 10As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halcyon; The husband cocke lookes out, and straight is sped, And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed. This day more cheerfully then ever shine, This day, which might enflame thy self, Old Valentine.

II.

15Till now, Thou warmd’st with multiplying loves
Two larkes, two sparrowes, or two Doves, All that is nothing unto this, For thou this day couplest two Phœnixes; Thou mak’st a Taper see
20What the sunne never saw, and what the Arke
[page 128]
(Which was of soules, and beasts, the cage, and park,)
Did not containe, one bed containes, through Thee, Two Phœnixes, whose joyned breasts
Are unto one another mutuall nests, 25Where motion kindles such fires, as shall give
Yong Phœnixes, and yet the old shall live. Whose love and courage never shall decline, But make the whole year through, thy day, O Valentine.

III.