Madness his sorrow, gout his cramp may he Of conscience, but of fame, and be The world's whole sap is sunk: The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk, Anguish'd, not that 't was sin, but that 't was she: Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph. Or may he for her virtue reverence May he dream treason, and believe that he His sons, which none of his may be, Or may he so long parasites have fed, That he would fain be theirs, whom he hath bred, And at the last be circumcis'd for bread. Study me then, you who shall lovers be At the next world, that is, at the next spring; In whom love wrought new alchymy. A quintessence even from nothingness, Of absence, darkness, death; things which art not. All others from all things draw all that's good, Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow Care to aught else; and often absences But I am by her death (which word wrongs her) I needs must know; I should prefer, 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 sun renew: Since she enjoys her long night's festival, WITCHCRAFT BY A PICTURE. I FIX mine eye on thine, and there Hadst thou the wicked skill, By pictures made and marr'd, to kill; But now I've drunk thy sweet salt tears, One picture more, yet that will be, THE BAIT. COME, live with me, and be my love, nd we will some new pleasures prove Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, With silken lines and silver hooks. There will the river whisp'ring run, When thou wilt swim in that live bath, If thou to be so seen art loath Let others freeze with angling reeds, Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest The bedded fish in banks out-wrest, Or curious traitors sleave silk flies, Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes: For thee, thou need'st no such deceit, For thou thyself art thine own bait; That fish, that is not catch'd thereby, Alas! is wiser far than I. Who will believe me, if I swear That I have had the plague a year? Who would not laugh at me, if I should say, I saw a flash of powder burn a day? Ah! what a trifle is a heart, If once into Love's bands it come! All other griefs allow a part To other griefs, aud ask themselves but some. They come to us, but us Love draws, He swallows us and never chaws: By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die; He is the tyrant pike, and we the fry. If 't were not so, what did become Of my heart, when I first saw thee? I brought a heart into the room, But from the room I carried none with me: Mine would have taught thine heart to show Yet nothing can to nothing fall, Nor any place be empty quite, Therefore I think my breast hath all Those pieces still, though they do not unite: And now as broken glasses show A hundred lesser faces, so My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, But after one such love can love no more. THE APPARITION. WHEN by thy scorn, O murd'ress, I am dead, Of all solicitation from me, Then shall my ghost come to thy bed, And thee feign'd vestal in worse arms shall see; And in a false sleep even from thee shrink. What I will say, I will not tell thee now, Lest that preserve thee: and since my love is spent, THE BROKEN HEART. HE is stark mad, whoever says Yet not that love so soon decays, But that it can ten in less space devour; VALEDICTION PORBIDDING MOURNING. As virtuous men pass mildly away, So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, 'T were profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of th' Earth brings harms and fears, Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Of absence, 'cause it doth remove The thing which elemented it. But we by a love so far refin'd, Careless eyes, lips, and hands, to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do. And though it in the centre sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Sach wilt thou be to me, who must, Like th' other foot, obliquely run, Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun. THE ECSTASY. WHERE, like a pillow on a bed, A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest The violet's declining head, Sat we on one another's breast. By a fast balm, which thence did spring, Was all the means to make us one, Our souls (which, to advance our state, That he souls' language understood, (We said) and tell us what we love, We see by this, it was not sex, We see, we saw not what did move : But as all several souls contain Mixture of things they know not what, The strength, the colour, and the size Interanimates two souls, That abler soul, which thence doth flow, Defects of loveliness controls. We then, who are this new soul, know, Are soul, whom no change can invade. But, O, alas! so long, so far Our bodies why do we forbear? Nor are dross to us, but allay. On man Heaven's influence works not so, Though it to body first repair. That subtle knot, which makes us man; But yet the body is the book; Have heard this dialogue of one, Let him still mark us, he shall see Small change, when we 're to bodies grown. LOVE'S DEITY. I LONG to talk with some old lover's ghost,! I must love her that loves not me. Sure they, which made him god, meant not so much, But when an even flame two hearts did touch, But every modern god will now extend Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I LOVE'S DIET. To what a cumbersome unwieldiness And burthenous corpulence my love had grown; But that I did, to make it less, And keep it in proportion, Give it a diet, made it feed upon, Above one sigh a-day I allow'd him not, Of which my fortune and my faults had part; If he wrung from me a tear, I brin'd it so Whatever she would dictate, I writ that, Thus I reclaim'd my buzzard love to fly At what, and when, and how, and where I chose; Now negligent of sport I lie, And now, as other falc'ners use, I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep,. And the game kill'd, or lost, go talk or sleep. I give my reputation to those Which were my friends; mine industry to foes: To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ; Thou, Love, by making me adore To him, for whom the passing-bell next tolls, Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me Love her, who doth neglect both me and thee, T' invent and practise this one way, t' annihilate all three. THE WILL. BEFORE I sign my last gasp, let me breathe, My constancy I to the planets give; My truth to them who at the court do live; To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness; My money to a capuchin. Thou, Love, taugh'st me, by appointing me To love there, where no love receiv'd can be, Only to give to such as have no good capacity. My faith I give to Roman Catholics; And courtship to an university: My patience let gamesters share. |