Songs and Sonnets

Donne, John

Songs and Sonnets

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John Donne

Songs and Sonnets

Air and Angels

Twice or thrice had I loved thee,

Before I knew thy face or name;

So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,

Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be;

Still when, to where thou wert, I came,

Some lovely glorious nothing I did see,

But since my soul, whose child love is,

Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,

More subtle than the parent is

Love must not be, but take a body too,

And therefore what thou wert, and who

I bid love ask, and now

That it assume thy body, I allow,

And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,

And so more steadily to have gone,

With wares which would sink admiration,

I saw, I had love's pinnace overfraught,

Every thy hair for love to work 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 angel, face and wings

Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,

So thy love may be my love's sphere;

Just such disparity

As is 'twixt air and angels' purity,

'Twixt women's love, and men's will ever be.

The Anniversary

All kings, and all their favourites,

All glory of honours, beauties, wits,

The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass,

Is elder by a year, now, than 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 tomorrow hath, nor yesterday,

Running it never runs from us away,

But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

Two graves must hide thine and my corse,

If one might, death were no divorce,

Alas, as well as other princes, we,

(Who prince enough in one another be,)

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

Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears;

But souls 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, souls from their graves remove.

And then we shall be throughly blessed,

But we no more, than all the rest.

Here upon earth, we are kings, and none but we

Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be;

Who is so safe as we? where none can do

Treason to us, except one of us two.

True and false fears let us refrain,

Let us love nobly, and live, and add again

Years and years unto years, till we attain

To write threescore, this is the second of our reign.

The Apparition

When by thy scorn, O murderess, I am dead,

And that thou think'st thee free

From all solicitation from me,

Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,

And thee, feigned vestal, in worse arms shall see;

Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,

And he, whose thou art then, being tired before,

Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think

Thou call'st for more,

And in false sleep will from thee shrink,

And then poor aspen wretch, neglected thou

Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie

A verier ghost than 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,

Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.

The Bait

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will some new pleasures prove

Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,

With silken lines, and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run

Warmed by thy eyes, more than the sun.

And there the'enamoured fish will stay,

Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channel hath,

Will amorously to thee swim,

Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,

By sun, or moon, thou darkenest both,

And if myself have leave to see,

I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legs, with shells and weeds,

Or treacherously poor fish beset,

With strangling snare, or windowy net:

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,

Or curious traitors, sleavesilk flies

Bewitch poor fishes' wandering eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,

For thou thyself art thine own bait,

That fish, that is not catched thereby,

Alas, is wiser far than I.

The Blossom

Little think'st thou, poor flower,

Whom I have watched six or seven days,

And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour

Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise,

And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough,

Little think'st thou

That it will freeze anon, and that I shall

Tomorrow find thee fall'n, or not at all.

Little think'st thou, poor heart

That 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 stiffness by long siege to bow:

Little think'st thou,

That thou tomorrow, ere that sun doth wake,

Must with this sun, and me a journey take.

But thou which lov'st to be

Subtle to plague thyself, wilt say,

Alas, if you must go, what's that to me?

Here lies my business, and here I will stay:

You go to friends, whose love and means present

Various content

To your eyes, ears, and tongue, and every part.

If then your body go, what need you a heart?

Well then, stay here; but know,

When thou hast stayed and done thy most;

A naked thinking heart, that makes no show,

Is to a woman, but a kind of ghost;

How shall she know my heart; or having none,

Know thee for one?

Practice may make her know some other part,

But take my word, she doth not know a heart.

Meet me at London, then,

Twenty days hence, and thou shalt see

Me fresher, and more fat, by being with men,

Than if I had stayed still with her and thee.

For God's sake, if you can, be you so too:

I would give you

There, to another friend, whom we shall find

As glad to have my body, as my mind.

Break 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 down, because 'twas night?

Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither,

Should in despite of light keep us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;

If it could speak as well as spy,

This were the worst, that it could say,

That being well, I fain would stay,

And that I loved my heart and honour so,

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

Must business thee from hence remove?

Oh, that's the worst disease of love,

The poor, the foul, the false, love can

Admit but not the busied man.

He which hath business, and makes love, doth do

Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.

The Broken Heart

He is stark mad, who ever says,

That he hath been in love an hour,

Yet not that love so soon decays,

But that it can ten in less space devour;

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 flask of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,

If once into Love's hands it come!

All other griefs allow a part

To other griefs, and ask themselves but some,

They come to us, but us Love draws,

He swallows us, and never chaws:

By him, as by chain-shot, whole ranks do die,

He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

If 'twere 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;

If it had gone to thee, I know

Mine would have taught thy heart to show

More pity unto me: but Love, alas,

At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,

Nor any place be empty quite,

Therefore I think my breast hath all

Those pieces still, though they be 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 Canonization

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,

Or chide my palsy, or my gout,

My five grey hairs, or ruined fortune flout,

With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,

Take you a course, get you a place,

Observe his Honour, or his Grace,

Or the King's real, or his stamped face

Contemplate; what you will, approve,

So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?

What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?

Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?

When did my colds a forward spring remove?

When did the heats which my veins fill

Add one more to the plaguy bill?

Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still

Litigious men, which quarrels move,

Though she and I do love.

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

Call her one, me another fly,

We are tapers too, and at our own cost die,

And we in us find the eagle and the dove,

The phoenix riddle hath more wit

By us; we two being one, are it.

So to one neutral thing both sexes fit

We die and rise the same, and prove

Mysterious by this love.

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

And if unfit for tombs and hearse

Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;

And if no piece of chronicle we prove,

We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;

As well a well wrought urn becomes

The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,

And by these hymns, all shall approve

Us canonized for love:

And thus invoke us; »You whom reverend love

Made one another's hermitage;

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

Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove

Into the glasses of your eyes

(So made such mirrors, and such spies,

That they did all to you epitomize,)

Countries, towns, courts: beg from above

A pattern of your love!«

Community

Good we must love, and must hate ill,

For ill is ill, and good good still,

But there are things indifferent,

Which we may neither hate, nor love,

But one, and then another prove,

As we shall find our fancy bent.

If then at first wise Nature had

Made women either good or bad,

Then some we might hate, and some choose,

But since she did them so create,

That we may neither love, nor hate,

Only this rests, All, all may use.

If they were good it would be seen,

Good is as visible as green,

And to all eyes itself betrays:

If they were bad, they could not last,

Bad doth itself, and others waste,

So, they deserve nor blame, nor praise.

But they are ours as fruits are ours,

He that but tastes, he that devours,

And he that leaves all, doth as well:

Changed loves are but changed sorts of meat,

And when he hath the kernel eat,

Who doth not fling away the shell?

The Computation

For the first twenty years, since yesterday,

I scarce believed, thou couldst be gone away,

For forty more, I fed on favours past,

And forty on hopes, that thou wouldst, they might last.

Tears drowned one hundred, and sighs blew out two,

A thousand, I did neither think, nor do,

Or not divide, all being one thought of you;

Or in a thousand more, forgot that too.

Yet call not this long life; but think that I

Am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die?

Confined Love

Some man unworthy to be possessor

Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,

Thought his pain and shame would be lesser,

If on womankind he might his anger wreak,

And thence a law did grow,

One should but one man know;

But are other creatures so?

Are sun, moon, or stars by law forbidden,

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

Are birds divorced, or are they chidden

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

Beasts do no jointures lose

Though they new lovers choose,

But we are made worse than those.

Who e'er rigged fair ship to lie in harbours

And not to seek new lands, or not to deal withal?

Or built fair houses, set trees, and arbours,

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

Good is not good, unless

A thousand it possess,

But doth waste with greediness.

The Curse

Whoever guesses, thinks, or dreams he knows

Who is my mistress, wither by this curse;

His only, and only his purse

May some dull heart to love dispose,

And she yield then to all that are his foes;

May he be scorned by one, whom all else scorn,

Forswear to others, what to her he hath sworn,

With fear of missing, shame of getting, torn:

Madness his sorrow, gout his cramps, may he

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

And may he feel no touch

Of conscience, but of fame, and be

Anguished not that 'twas sin, but that 'twas she:

In early and long scarceness may he rot,

For land which had been his, if he had not

Himself incestuously an heir begot:

May he dream treason, and believe, that he

Meant to perform it, and confess, and die,

And no record tell why:

His sons, which none of his may be,

Inherit nothing but his infamy:

Or may he so long parasites have fed,

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

And at the last be circumcised for bread:

The venom of all stepdames, gamesters' gall,

What tyrants, and their subjects interwish,

What plants, mines, beasts, fowl, fish,

Can contribute, all ill which all

Prophets, or poets spake; and all which shall

Be annexed in schedules unto this by me,

Fall on that man; for if it be a she

Nature before hand hath out-cursed me.

The Damp

When I am dead, and doctors know not why,

And my friends' curiosity

Will have me cut up to survey each part,

When they shall find your picture in my heart,

You think a sudden damp of love

Will through all their senses move,

And work on them as me, and so prefer

Your murder, to the name of massacre.

Poor victories; but if you dare be brave,

And pleasure in your conquest have,

First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain,

And let th' enchantress Honour, next be slain,

And like a Goth and Vandal rise,

Deface records, and histories

Of your own arts and triumphs over men,

And without such advantage kill me then.

For I could muster up as well as you

My giants, and my witches too,

Which are vast Constancy, and Secretness,

But these I neither look for, nor profess;

Kill me as woman, let me die

As a mere man; do you but try

Your passive valour, and you shall find then,

Naked you have odds enough of any man.

The Dissolution

She is dead; and all which die

To their first elements resolve;

And we were mutual elements to us,

And made of one another.

My body then doth hers involve,

And those things whereof I consist, hereby

In me abundant grow, and burdenous,

And nourish not, but smother.

My fire of passion, sighs of air,

Water of tears, and earthy sad despair,

Which my materials be,

But near worn out by love's security,

She, to my loss, doth by her death repair,

And I might live long wretched so

But that my fire doth with my fuel grow.

Now as those active kings

Whose foreign conquest treasure brings,

Receive more, and spend more, and soonest break:

This (which I am amazed that I can speak)

This death, hath with my store

My use increased.

And so my soul more earnestly released,

Will outstrip hers; as bullets flown before

A latter bullet may o'ertake, the powder being more.

The Dream

Dear love, for nothing less than thee

Would I have broke this happy dream,

It was a theme

For reason, much too strong for phantasy,

Therefore thou waked'st me wisely; yet

My dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it;

Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice,

To make dreams truths, and fables histories;

Enter these arms, for since thou thought'st it best,

Not to dream all my dream, let's act the rest.

As lightning, or a taper's light,

Thine eyes, and not thy noise waked me;

Yet I thought thee

(For thou lov'st truth) an angel, at first sight,

But when I saw thou saw'st my heart,

And knew'st my thoughts, beyond an angel's art,

When thou knew'st what I dreamed, when thou knew'st when

Excess of joy would wake me, and cam'st then,

I must confess, it could not choose but be

Profane, to think thee anything but thee.

Coming and staying showed thee, thee,

But rising makes me doubt, that now,

Thou art not thou.

That love is weak, where fear's as strong as he;

'Tis not all spirit, pure, and brave,

If mixture it of fear, shame, honour, have.

Perchance as torches which must ready be,

Men light and put out, so thou deal'st with me,

Thou cam'st to kindle, goest to come; then I

Will dream that hope again, but else would die.

The Ecstasy

Where, like a pillow on a bed,

A pregnant bank swelled up, to rest

The violet's reclining head,

Sat we two, one another's best;

Our hands were firmly cemented

With a fast balm, which thence did spring,

Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread

Our eyes, upon one double string;

So to' intergraft our hands, as yet

Was all our means to make us one,

And pictures in our eyes to get

Was all our propagation.

As 'twixt two equal armies, Fate

Suspends uncertain victory,

Our souls, (which to advance their state,

Were gone out), hung 'twixt her, and me.

And whilst our souls negotiate there,

We like sepulchral statues lay;

All day, the same our postures were,

And we said nothing, all the day.

If any, so by love refined,

That he soul's language understood,

And by good love were grown all mind,

Within convenient distance stood,

He (though he knew not which soul spake

Because both meant, both spake the same)

Might thence a new concoction take,

And part far purer than he came.

This ecstasy doth unperplex

(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,

Love, these mixed souls doth mix again,

And makes both one, each this and that.

A single violet transplant,

The strength, the colour, and the size,

(All which before was poor, and scant,)

Redoubles still, and multiplies.

When love, with one another so

Interinanimates two souls,

That abler soul, which thence doth flow,

Defects of loneliness controls.

We then, who are this new soul, know,

Of what we are composed, and made,

For, th' atomies of which we grow,

Are souls, whom no change can invade.

But O alas, so long, so far

Our bodies why do we forbear?

They are ours, though they are not we, we are

The intelligences, they the sphere.

We owe them thanks, because they thus,

Did us, to us, at first convey,

Yielded their forces, sense, to us,

Nor are dross to us, but allay.

On man heaven's influence works not so,

But that it first imprints the air,

So soul into the soul may flow,

Though it to body first repair.

As our blood labours to beget

Spirits, as like souls as it can,

Because such fingers need to knit

That subtle knot, which makes us man:

So must pure lovers' souls descend

T' affections, and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend,

Else a great prince in prison lies.

To our bodies turn we then, that so

Weak men on love revealed may look;

Love's mysteries in souls do grow,

But yet the body is his book.

And if some lover, such as we,

Have heard this dialogue of one,

Let him still mark us, he shall see

Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.

The Expiration

So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,

Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away,

Turn thou ghost that way, and let me turn this,

And let ourselves benight our happiest day,

We asked none leave to love; nor will we owe

Any, so cheap a death, as saying, Go;

Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee,

Ease me with death, by bidding me go too.

Oh, if it have, let my word work on me,

And a just office on a murderer do.

Except it be too late, to kill me so,

Being double dead, going, and bidding, go.

Farewell to Love

Whilst yet to prove,

I thought there was some deity in love

So did I reverence, and gave

Worship; as atheists at their dying hour

Call, what they cannot name, an unknown power,

As ignorantly did I crave:

Thus when

Things not yet known are coveted by men,

Our desires give them fashion, and so

As they wax lesser, fall, as they size, grow.

But, from late fair

His highness sitting in a golden chair,

Is not less cared for after three days

By children, than the thing which lovers so

Blindly admire, and with such worship woo;

Being had, enjoying it decays:

And thence,

What before pleased them all, takes but one sense,

And that so lamely, as it leaves behind

A kind of sorrowing dullness to the mind.

Ah cannot we,

As well as cocks and lions jocund be,

After such pleasures? Unless wise

Nature decreed (since each such act, they say,

Diminisheth the length of life a day)

This; as she would man should despise

The sport,

Because that other curse of being short,

And only for a minute made to be

Eager, desires to raise posterity.

Since so, my mind

Shall not desire what no man else can find,

I'll no more dote and run

To pursue things which had endamaged me.

And when I come where moving beauties be,

As men do when the summer's sun

Grows great,

Though I admire their greatness, shun their heat;

Each place can afford shadows. If all fail,

'Tis but applying worm-seed to the tail.

A Fever

Oh do not die, for I shall hate

All women so, when thou art gone,

That thee I shall not celebrate,

When I remember, thou wast one.

But yet thou canst not die, I know,

To leave this world behind, is death,

But when thou from this world wilt go,

The whole world vapours with thy breath.

Or if, when thou, the world's soul, go'st,

It stay, 'tis but thy carcase then,

The fairest woman, but thy ghost,

But corrupt worms, the worthiest men.

Oh wrangling schools, that search what fire

Shall burn this world, had none the wit

Unto this knowledge to aspire,

That this her fever might be it?

And yet she cannot waste by this,

Nor long bear this torturing wrong,

For much corruption needful is

To fuel such a fever long.

These burning fits but meteors be,

Whose matter in thee is soon spent.

Thy beauty, and all parts, which are thee,

Are unchangeable firmament.

Yet 'twas of my mind, seizing thee,

Though it in thee cannot perséver.

For I had rather owner be

Of thee one hour, than all else ever.

The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deny'st me is;

Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;

Confess it, this cannot be said

A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, nay more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;

Though parents grudge, and you, we'are met,

And cloistered in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to this, self murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?

In what could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?

Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou

Find'st not thyself, nor me the weaker now;

'Tis true, then learn how false, fears be;

Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,

Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

The Funeral

Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm

Nor question much

That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm;

The mystery, the sign you must not touch,

For 'tis my outward soul,

Vicerory to that, which then to heaven being gone,

Will leave this to control,

And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall

Through every part,

Can tie those parts, and make me one of all;

These hairs which upward grew, and strength and art

Have from a better brain,

Can better do it; except she meant that I

By this should know my pain,

As prisoners then are manacled, when they are condemned to die.

Whate'er she meant by it, bury it with me,

For since I am

Love's martyr, it might breed idolatry,

If into others' hands these relics came;

As 'twas humility

To afford to it all that a soul can do,

So, 'tis some bravery,

That since you would save none of me, I bury some of you.

The Good Morrow

I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I

Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then,

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?

'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room, an every where.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown,

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

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest,

Where can we find two better hemispheres

Without sharp north, without declining west?

What ever dies, was not mixed equally;

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

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

The Indifferent

I can love both fair and brown,

Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays,

Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays,

Her whom the country formed, and whom the town,

Her who believes, and her who tries,

Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,

And her who is dry cork, and never cries;

I can love her, and her, and you and you,

I can love any, so she be not true.

Will no other vice content you?

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

Have you old vices spent, and now would find out others?

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

Oh we are not, be not you so,

Let me, and do you, twenty know.

Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.

Must I, who came to travail thorough you,

Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?

Venus heard me sigh this song,

And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,

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

She went, examined, and returned ere long,

And said, »Alas, some two or three

Poor heretics in love there be,

Which think to establish dangerous constancy.

But I have told them, ›Since you will be true,

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

A Jet Ring Sent

Thou art not so black, as my heart,

Nor half so brittle, as her heart, thou art;

What wouldst thou say? shall both our properties by thee be spoke,

Nothing more endless, nothing sooner broke?

Marriage rings are not of this stuff;

Oh, why should aught less precious, or less tough

Figure our loves? Except in thy name thou have bid it say,

I am cheap, and naught but fashion, fling me away.

Yet stay with me since thou art come,

Circle this finger's top, which didst her thumb.

Be justly proud, and gladly safe, that thou dost dwell with me,

She that, oh, broke her faith, would soon break thee.

A Lecture upon the Shadow

Stand still, and I will read to thee

A lecture, love, in love's philosophy.

These three hours that we have spent,

Walking here, two shadows went

Along with us, which we ourselves produced;

But, now the sun is just above our head,

We do those shadows tread;

And to brave clearness all things are reduced.

So whilst our infant loves did grow,

Disguises did, and shadows, flow,

From us, and our care; but, now 'tis not so.

That love hath not attained the high'st degree,

Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,

We shall new shadows make the other way.

As the first were made to blind

Others; these which come behind

Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.

If our loves faint, and westwardly decline;

To me thou, falsely, thine,

And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.

The morning shadows wear away,

But these grow longer all the day,

But oh, love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light;

And his first minute, after noon, is night.

The Legacy

When I died last, and, dear, I die

As often as from thee I go,

Though it be an hour ago,

And lovers' hours be full eternity,

I can remember yet, that I

Something did say, and something did bestow;

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

Mine own executor and legacy.

I heard me say, »Tell her anon,

That my self«, that is you, not I,

»Did kill me,« and when I felt me die,

I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;

But I alas could there find none,

When I had ripped me, and searched where hearts should lie;

It killed me again, 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 entire to none, and few had part.

As good as could be made by art

It seemed; and therefore for our losses sad,

I meant to send this heart instead of mine,

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

Lovers' Infiniteness

If yet I have not all thy love,

Dear, I shall never have it all,

I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,

Nor can entreat one other tear to fall.

All my treasure, which should purchase thee,

Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent,

Yet no more can be due to me,

Than at the bargain made was meant.

If then thy gift of love were partial,

That some to me, some should to others fall,

Dear, I shall never have thee all.

Or if then thou gavest me all,

All was but all, which thou hadst then;

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

New love created be, by other men,

Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,

In sighs, in oaths, and letters outbid me,

This new love may beget new fears,

For, this love was not vowed by thee.

And yet it was, thy gift being general,

The ground, thy heart is mine; whatever shall

Grow there, dear, I should have it all.

Yet I would not have all yet,

He 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 gav'st it:

Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,

It stays at home, and thou with losing sav'st it:

But we will have a way more liberal,

Than changing hearts, to join them, so we shall

Be one, and one another's all.

Love's Alchemy

Some that have deeper digged love's mine than I,

Say, where his centric happiness doth lie:

I have loved, and got, and told,

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

I should not find that hidden mystery;

Oh, 'tis imposture all:

And as no chemic yet the elixir got,

But glorifies his pregnant pot,

If by the way to him befall

Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,

So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,

But get a winter-seeming summer's night.

Our ease, our thrift, our honour, and our day,

Shall we, for this vain bubble's shadow pay?

Ends love in this, that my man,

Can be as happy as I can; if he can

Endure the short scorn of a bridegroom's play?

That loving wretch that swears,

'Tis not the bodies marry, but the minds,

Which he in her angelic finds,

Would swear as justly, that he hears,

In that day's rude hoarse minstrelsy, the spheres.

Hope not for mind in women; at their best

Sweetness and wit, they are but mummy, possessed.

Love's Deity

I long to talk with some old lover's ghost,

Who died before the god of love was born:

I cannot think that he, who then loved most,

Sunk so low, as to love one which did scorn.

But since this god produced a destiny,

And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be;

I must love her, that loves not me.

Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much,

Nor he, in his young godhead practised it.

But when an even flame two hearts did touch,

His office was indulgently to fit

Actives to passives. Correspondency

Only his subject was; it cannot be

Love, till I love her, that loves me.

But every modern god will now extend

His vast prerogative, as far as Jove.

To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,

All is the purlieu of the god of love.

Oh were we wakened by this tyranny

To ungod this child again, it could not be

I should love her, who loves not me.

Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,

As though I felt the worst that love could do?

Love might make me leave loving, or might try

A deeper plague, to make her love me too,

Which, since she loves before, I am loth to see;

Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,

If she whom I love, should love me.

Love's Diet

To what a cumbersome unwieldiness

And burdenous corpulence my love had grown,

But that I did, to make it less,

And keep it in proportion,

Give it a diet, made it feed upon

That which love worst endures, discretion.

Above one sigh a day I allowed him not,

Of which my fortune, and my faults had part;

And if sometimes by stealth he got

A she sigh from my mistress' heart,

And thought to feast on that, I let him see

'Twas neither very sound, nor meant to me.

If he wrung from me a tear, I brined it so

With scorn or shame, that him it nourished not;

If he sucked hers, I let him know

'Twas not a tear, which he had got,

His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;

For, eyes which roll towards all, weep not, but sweat.

Whatever he would dictate, I writ that,

But burnt my letters; when she writ to me,

And that that favour made him fat,

I said, »If any title be

Conveyed by this, ah, what doth it avail,

To be the fortieth name in an entail?«

Thus I reclaimed my buzzard love, to fly

At what, and when, and how, and where I choose;

Now negligent of sport I lie,

And now as other falconers use,

I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh and weep:

And the game killed, or lost, go talk, and sleep.

Love's Exchange

Love, any devil else but you,

Would for a given soul give something too.

At Court your fellows every day,

Give th' art of rhyming, huntsmanship, and play,

For them who were their own before;

Only I have nothing which gave more,

But am, alas, by being lowly, lower.

I ask not dispensation now

To falsify a tear, or sigh, or vow,

I do not sue from thee to draw

A non obstante on nature's law,

These are prerogatives, they inhere

In thee and thine; none should forswear

Except that he Love's minion were.

Give me thy weakness, make me blind,

Both ways, as thou and thine, in eyes and mind;

Love, let me never know that this

Is love, or, that love childish is.

Let me not know that others know

That she knows my pain, lest that so

A tender shame make me mine own new woe.

If thou give nothing, yet thou'art just,

Because I would not thy first motions trust;

Small towns which stand stiff, till great shot

Enforce them, by war's law condition not.

Such in love's warfare is my case,

I may not article for grace,

Having put Love at last to show this face.

This face, by which he could command

And change the idolatry of any land,

This face, which wheresoe'er it comes,

Can call vowed men from cloisters, dead from tombs,

And melt both poles at once, and store

Deserts with cities, and make more

Mines in the earth, than quarries were before.

For this Love is enraged with me,

Yet kills not. If I must example be

To future rebels; if th' unborn

Must learn, by my being cut up, and torn:

Kill, and dissect me, Love; for this

Torture against thine own end is,

Racked carcases make ill anatomies.

Love's Growth

I scarce believe my love to be so pure

As I had thought it was,

Because it doth endure

Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;

Methinks I lied 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 only be no quintessence,

But mixed of all stuffs, paining soul, or sense,

And of the sun his working vigour borrow,

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

To say, which have no mistress but their Muse,

But as all else, being elemented too,

Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

And yet not greater, but more eminent,

Love by the spring is grown;

As, in the firmament,

Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,

Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough,

From love's awakened root do bud out now.

If, as in water stirred more circles be

Produced by one, love such additions take,

Those like so many spheres, but one heaven make,

For, they are all concentric unto thee,

And though each spring do add to love new heat,

As princes do in times of action get

New taxes, and remit them not in peace,

No winter shall abate the spring's increase.

Love's Usury

For every hour that thou wilt spare me now,

I will allow,

Usurious God of Love, twenty to thee,

When with my brown, my grey hairs equal be;

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

Me travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget,

Resume my last year's relict: think that yet

We had never met.

Let me think any rival's letter mine,

And at next nine

Keep midnight's promise; mistake by the way

The maid, and tell the Lady of that delay;

Only let me love none, no, not the sport;

From country grass, to comfitures of Court,

Or city's quelque-choses, let report

My mind transport.

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

Inflamed by thee,

If thine own honour, or my shame, or pain,

Thou covet, most at that age thou shalt gain.

Do thy will then, then subject and degree,

And fruit of love, Love, I submit to thee,

Spare me till then, I'll bear it, though she be

One that loves me.

The Message

Send home my long strayed eyes to me,

Which (oh) too long have dwelt on thee,

Yet since there they have learned such ill,

Such forced fashions,

And false passions,

That they be

Made by thee

Fit for no good sight, keep them still.

Send home my harmless heart again,

Which no unworthy thought could stain,

But if it be taught by thine

To make jestings

Of protestings,

And cross both

Word and oath,

Keep it, for then 'tis none of mine.

Yet send me back my heart and eyes,

That I may know, and see thy lies,

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.

Negative Love

I never stooped so low, as they

Which on an eye, cheek, lip, can prey,

Seldom to them, which soar no higher

Than virtue or the mind to admire,

For sense, and understanding may

Know, what gives fuel to their fire:

My love, though silly, is more brave,

For may I miss, whene'er I crave,

If I know yet what I would have.

If that be simply perfectest

Which can by no way be expressed

But negatives, my love is so.

To all, which all love, I say no.

If any who decipher best,

What we know not, ourselves, can know,

Let him teach me that nothing; this

As yet my ease, and comfort is,

Though I speed not, I cannot miss.

A Nocturnal upon S. Lucy's Day, being the shortest day

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,

Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks,

The sun is spent, and now his flasks

Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

The world's whole sap is sunk:

The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,

Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,

Dead and interred; yet all these seem to laugh,

Compared with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be

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

For I am every dead thing,

In whom love wrought new alchemy.

For his art did express

A quintessence even from nothingness,

From dull privations, and lean emptiness

He ruined me, and I am re-begot

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

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

Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;

I, by love's limbeck, am the grave

Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood

Have we two wept, and so

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

To be two chaoses, when we did show

Care to aught else; and often absences

Withdrew our souls, and made us carcases.

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

Of the first nothing, the elixir grown;

Were I a man, that I were one,

I needs must know; I should prefer,

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 sun renew.

You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser sun

At this time to the Goat is run

To fetch new lust, and give it you,

Enjoy your summer all;

Since she enjoys her long night's festival,

Let me prepare towards her, and let me call

This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this

Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.

The Paradox

No lover saith, I love, nor any other

Can judge a perfect lover;

He thinks that else none can, nor will agree

That any loves but he:

I cannot say I loved, for who can say

He was killed yesterday?

Love with excess of heat, more young than old,

Death kills with too much cold;

We die but once, and who loved last did die,

He that saith twice, doth lie:

For though he seem to move, and stir a while,

It doth the sense beguile.

Such life is like the light which bideth yet

When the light's life is set,

Or like the heat, which fire in solid matter

Leaves behind, two hours after.

Once I loved and died; and am now become

Mine epitaph and tomb.

Here dead men speak their last, and so do I;

Love-slain, lo, here I lie.

The Primrose

Upon this primrose hill,

Where, if heaven would distil

A shower of rain, each several drop might go

To his own primrose, and grow manna so;

And where their form, and their infinity

Make a terrestrial galaxy,

As the small stars do in the sky:

I walk to find a true love; and I see

That 'tis not a mere woman, that is she,

But must, or more, or less than woman be.

Yet know I not, which flower

I wish; a six, or four;

For should my true love less than woman be,

She were scarce anything; and then, should she

Be more than woman, she would get above

All thought of sex, and think to move

My heart to study her, not to love;

Both these were monsters; since there must reside

Falsehood in woman, I could more abide,

She were by art, than nature falsified.

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 half ten

Belong unto each woman, then

Each woman may take half us men;

Or if this will not serve their turn, since all

Numbers are odd, or even, and they fall

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

The Prohibition

Take heed of loving me,

At least remember, I forbade it thee;

Not that I shall repair my unthrifty waste

Of breath and blood, upon thy sighs, and tears,

By being to thee then what to me thou wast;

But, so great joy, our life at once outwears,

Then, lest thy love, by my death, frustrate be,

If thou love me, take heed of loving me.

Take heed of hating me,

Or too much triumph in the victory.

Not that I shall be mine own officer,

And hate with hate again retaliate;

But thou wilt lose the style of conqueror,

If I, thy conquest, perish by thy hate.

Then, lest my being nothing lessen thee,

If thou hate me, take heed of hating me.

Yet, love and hate me too,

So, these extremes shall neither's office do;

Love me, that I may die the gentler way;

Hate me, because thy love's too great for me;

Or let these two, themselves, not me decay;

So shall I live thy stage, not triumph be;

Lest thou thy love and hate and me undo,

To let me live, Oh love and hate me too.

The Relic

When my grave is broke up again

Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learned that woman-head

To be to more than one a bed)

And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,

Will he not let us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies,

Who thought that this device might be some way

To make their souls, at the last busy day,

Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

If this fall in a time, or land,

Where mis-devotion doth command,

Then, he that digs us up, will bring

Us, to the Bishop, and the King,

To make us relics; then

Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I

A something else thereby;

All women shall adore us, and some men;

And since at such time, miracles are sought,

I would have that age by this paper taught

What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First, we loved well and faithfully,

Yet knew not what we loved, nor why,

Difference of sex no more we knew,

Than our guardian angels do;

Coming and going, we

Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;

Our hands ne'er touched the seals,

Which nature, injured by late law, sets free:

These miracles we did; but now alas,

All measure, and all language, I should pass,

Should I tell what a miracle she was.

Self Love

He that cannot choose but love,

And strives against it still,

Never shall my fancy move;

For he loves 'gainst his will;

Nor he which is all his own,

And can at pleasure choose,

When I am caught he can be gone,

And when he list refuse.

Nor he that loves none but fair,

For such by all are sought;

Nor he that can for foul ones care,

For his judgement then is naught:

Nor he that hath wit, for he

Will make me his jest or slave;

Nor a fool, for when others ...

He can neither. ...

Nor he that still his mistress pays,

For she is thralled therefore:

Nor he that pays not, for he says

Within she's worth no more.

Is there then no kind of men

Whom I may freely prove?

I will vent that humour then

In mine own self love.

Song

Go, and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me, where all past years are,

Or who cleft the Devil's foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy's stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'est born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

Till age snow white hairs on thee,

Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear

No where

Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet,

Yet do not, I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet,

Though she were true, when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Song

Sweetest love, I do not go,

For weariness of thee,

Nor in hope the world can show

A fitter love for me;

But since that I

Must die at last, 'tis best,

To use my self in jest

Thus by feigned deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,

And yet is here today,

He hath no desire nor sense,

Nor half so short a way:

Then fear not me,

But believe that I shall make

Speedier journeys, since I take

More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power,

That if good fortune fall,

Cannot add another hour,

Nor a lost hour recall!

But come bad chance,

And we join to it our strength,

And we teach it art and length,

Itself o'er us to advance.

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,

But sigh'st my soul away,

When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,

My life's blood doth decay.

It cannot be

That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,

If in thine my life thou waste,

Thou art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart

Forethink me any ill,

Destiny may take thy part,

And may thy fears fulfil;

But think that we

Are but turned aside to sleep;

They who one another keep

Alive, ne'er parted be.

Sonnet. The Token

Send me some token, that my hope may live,

Or that my easeless thoughts may sleep and rest;

Send me some honey to make sweet my hive,

That in my passions I may hope the best.

I beg no riband wrought with thine own hands,

To knit our loves in the fantastic strain

Of new-touched youth; nor ring to show the stands

Of our affection, that as that's round and plain,

So should our loves meet in simplicity;

No, nor the corals which thy wrist enfold,

Laced up together in congruity,

To show our thoughts should rest in the same hold;

No, nor thy picture, though most gracious,

And most desired, because best like the best;

Nor witty lines, which are most copious,

Within the writings which thou hast addressed.

Send me nor this, nor that, to increase my store,

But swear thou think'st I love thee, and no more.

The Sun Rising

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys, and sour prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend, and strong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight so long:

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,

Whether both th'Indias of spice and mine

Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,

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

She'is all states, and all princes, I,

Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compared to this,

All honour's mimic; all wealth alchemy.

Thou sun art half as happy as we,

In that the world's contracted thus;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

The Triple Fool

I am two fools, I know,

For loving, and for saying so

In whining poetry;

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

If she would not deny?

Then as th'earth's inward narrow crooked lanes

Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,

I thought, if I could draw my pains

Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.

Grief 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 pain,

And, by delighting many, frees again

Grief, which verse did restrain.

To love and grief 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 fools, do so grow three;

Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

Twicknam Garden

Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with tears,

Hither I come to seek the spring,

And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,

Receive such balms, as else cure everything;

But O, self traitor, I do bring

The spider love, which transubstantiates all,

And can convert manna to gall,

And that this place may thoroughly be thought

True paradise, I have the serpent brought.

'Twere wholesomer for me, that winter did

Benight the glory of this place,

And that a grave frost did forbid

These trees to laugh, and mock me to my face;

But that I may not this disgrace

Endure, nor yet leave loving, Love, let me

Some senseless piece of this place be;

Make me a mandrake, so I may groan here,

Or a stone fountain weeping out my year.

Hither with crystal vials, lovers come,

And take my tears, which are love's wine,

And try your mistress' tears at home,

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

Alas, hearts do not in eyes shine,

Nor can you more judge woman's thoughts by tears,

Than by her shadow, what she wears.

O perverse sex, where none is true but she,

Who's therefore true, because her truth kills me.

The Undertaking

I have done one braver thing

Than all the Worthies did,

And yet a braver thence doth spring,

Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now t'impart

The skill of specular stone,

When he which can have learned the art

To cut it, can find none.

So, if I now should utter this,

Others (because no more

Such stuff to work upon, there is,)

Would love but as before.

But he who loveliness within

Hath found, all outward loathes,

For he who colour loves, and skin,

Loves but their oldest clothes.

If, as I have, you also do

Virtue attired in woman see,

And dare love that, and say so too,

And forget the He and She;

And if this love, though placed so,

From profane men you hide,

Which will no faith on this bestow,

Or, if they do, deride:

Then you have done a braver thing

Than all the Worthies did,

And a braver thence will spring,

Which is, to keep that hid.

A Valediction: forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls, to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

The breath goes now, and some say, no:

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,

'Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,

Men reckon what it did and meant,

But trepidation of the spheres,

Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love, so much refined,

That our selves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

Care less, 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 aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two,

Thy soul the fixed 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.

Such 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.

A Valediction: of the Book

I'll tell thee now (dear love) what thou shalt do

To anger destiny, as she doth us,

How I shall stay, though she esloign me thus,

And how posterity shall know it too;

How thine may out-endure

Sibyl's glory, and obscure

Her who from Pindar could allure,

And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame,

And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find, and name.

Study our manuscripts, those myriads

Of letters, which have past 'twixt thee and me,

Thence write our annals, and in them will be

To all whom love's subliming fire invades,

Rule and example found;

There, the faith of any ground

No schismatic will dare to wound,

That sees, how Love this grace to us affords,

To make, to keep, to use, to be these his records.

This book, as long lived as the elements,

Or as the world's form, this all-graved tome

In cypher write, or new made idiom;

We for Love's clergy only are instruments,

When this book is made thus,

Should again the ravenous

Vandals and Goths inundate us,

Learning were safe; in this our universe

Schools might learn sciences, spheres music, angels verse.

Here Love's divines (since all divinity

Is love or wonder) may find all they seek,

Whether abstract spiritual love they like,

Their souls exhaled with what they do not see,

Or, loth so to amuse

Faith's infirmity, they choose

Something which they may see and use;

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

Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it.

Here more than in their books may lawyers find,

Both by what titles mistresses are ours,

And how prerogative these states devours,

Transferred from Love himself, to womankind,

Who though from heart, and eyes,

They exact great subsidies,

Forsake him who on them relies,

And for the cause, honour, or conscience give,

Chimeras, vain as they, or their prerogative.

Here statesmen, (or of them, they which can read,)

May of their occupation find the grounds,

Love and their art alike it deadly wounds,

If to consider what 'tis, one proceed,

In both they do excel

Who the present govern well,

Whose weakness none doth, or dares tell;

In this thy book, such will their nothing see,

As in the Bible some can find out alchemy.

Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I'll study thee,

As he removes far off, that great heights takes;

How great love is, presence best trial makes,

But absence tries how long this love will be;

To take a latitude

Sun, or stars, are fitliest viewed

At their brightest, but to conclude

Of longitudes, what other way have we,

But to mark when, and where the dark eclipses be?

A Valediction: of my Name in the Window

My name engraved herein,

Doth contribute my firmness to this glass,

Which, ever since that charm, hath been

As hard, as that which graved it, was;

Thine eye will give it price enough to mock

The diamonds of either rock.

'Tis much that glass should be

As all confessing, and through-shine as I,

'Tis more, that it shows thee to thee,

And clear reflects thee to thine eye.

But all such rules, love's magic can undo,

Here you see me, and I am you.

As no one point, nor dash,

Which are but accessory to this name,

The showers and tempests can outwash,

So shall all times find me the same;

You this entireness better may fulfil,

Who have the pattern with you still.

Or if too hard and deep

This learning be, for a scratched name to teach,

It, as a given death's head keep

Lovers' mortality to preach,

Or think this ragged bony name to be

My ruinous anatomy.

Then, as all my souls be

Emparadised 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 vein,

Which tile this house, will come again.

Till my return repair

And recompact my scattered body so,

As all the virtuous powers which are

Fixed in the stars, are said to flow

Into such characters, as graved be

When these stars have supremacy,

So since this name was cut

When love and grief their exaltation had,

No door 'gainst this name's influence shut;

As much more loving, as more sad,

'Twill make thee; and thou shouldst, till I return,

Since I die daily, daily mourn.

When thy inconsiderate hand

Flings ope this casement, with my trembling name,

To look on one, whose wit or land,

New battery to thy heart may frame,

Then think this name alive, and that thou thus

In it offend'st my Genius.

And when thy melted maid,

Corrupted by thy lover's gold, and page,

His letter at thy pillow hath laid,

Disputed it, and tamed thy rage,

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

May my name step in, and hide his.

And if this treason go

To an overt act, and that thou write again;

In superscribing, this name flow

Into thy fancy, from the pane.

So, in forgetting thou rememberest right,

And unaware to me shalt write.

But glass, and lines must be

No means our firm substantial love to keep;

Near death inflicts this lethargy,

And this I murmur in my sleep;

Impute this idle talk, to that I go,

For dying men talk often so.

A Valediction: of Weeping

Let me pour forth

My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,

For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,

And by this mintage they are something worth,

For thus they be

Pregnant of thee;

Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,

When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore,

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

On a round ball

A workman that hath copies by, can lay

An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,

And quickly make that, which was nothing, all,

So doth each tear,

Which thee doth wear,

A globe, yea world by that impression grow,

Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflow

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

O more than moon,

Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,

Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear

To teach the sea, what it may do too soon;

Let not the wind

Example find,

To do me more harm, than it purposeth;

Since thou and I sigh one another's breath,

Whoe'er sighs most, is cruellest, and hastes the other's death.

The Will

Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,

Great Love, some legacies; here I bequeath

Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see,

If they be blind, then Love, I give them thee;

My tongue to fame; to ambassadors mine ears;

To women or the sea, my tears.

Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore

By making me serve her who had twenty more,

That I should give to none, but such, as had too much before.

My constancy I to the planets give;

My truth to them, who at the Court do live;

Mine ingenuity and openness,

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;

My silence to any, who abroad hath been;

My money to a Capuchin.

Thou Love taught'st me, by appointing me

To love there, where no love received can be,

Only to give to such as have an incapacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics;

All my good works unto the schismatics

Of Amsterdam; my best civility

And courtship, to an university;

My modesty I give to soldiers bare;

My patience let gamesters share.

Thou Love taught'st me, by making me

Love her that holds my love disparity,

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

I give my reputation to those

Which were my friends; mine industry to foes;

To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness;

My sickness to physicians, or excess;

To Nature, all that I in rhyme have writ;

And to my company my wit.

Thou Love, by making me adore

Her, who begot this love in me before,

Taught'st me to make, as though I gave, when I did but restore.

To him for whom the passing bell next tolls,

I give my physic books; my written rolls

Of moral counsels, I to Bedlam give;

My brazen medals, unto them which live

In want of bread; to them which pass among

All foreigners, mine English tongue.

Thou, Love, by making me love one

Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I'll give no more; but I'll undo

The world by dying; because love dies too.

Then all your beauties will be no more worth

Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth;

And all your graces no more use shall have

Than a sundial in a grave.

Thou Love taught'st me, by making me

Love her, who doth neglect both me and thee,

To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all three.

Witchcraft by a Picture

I fix mine eye on thine, and there

Pity my picture burning in thine eye,

My picture drowned in a transparent tear,

When I look lower I espy;

Hadst thou the wicked skill

By pictures made and marred, to kill,

How many ways mightst thou perform thy will?

But now I have drunk thy sweet salt tears,

And though thou pour more I'll depart;

My picture vanished, vanish fears,

That I can be endamaged by that art;

Though thou retain of me

One picture more, yet that will be,

Being in thine own heart, from all malice free.

Woman's Constancy

Now thou hast loved me one whole day,

Tomorrow 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 oaths made in reverential fear

Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear?

Or, as true deaths, true marriages untie,

So lovers' contracts, images of those,

Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?

Or, your own end to justify,

For having purposed change, and falsehood, you

Can have no way but falsehood to be true?

Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could

Dispute, and conquer, if I would,

Which I abstain to do,

For by tomorrow, I may think so too.