Poor victories! but if you dare be brave, NEGATIVE LOVE. I NEVER stoop'd so low as they, Which on an eye, cheek, lip, can prey, Seldom to them, which soar no bigher Than virtue or the mind t'admire; And without such advantage kill me then. 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 means be express'd To all which all love, I say No. 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. THE PROHIBITION. Take heed of loving me, And those things, whereof I consist, hereby At least remember, I forbad it thee; Not that I shall repair my unthrifty waste Of breath and blood, upon thy sighs and tears, Water of tears, and earthy sad despair, By being to thee then what to me thou wast; Which my materials be, But so great joy our life at once outwears: (But near worn out by love's security) Then lest thy love by my death frustrate be, She, to my loss, doth by her death repair; 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: If I, thy conquest, perish by thy hate: Then, lest my being nothing lessen theç, If thou bate me, take heed of hating me. Will outstrip her's: as bullets flown before Yet love and hate me too, Love me, that I may die the gentler way: Then lest thy love thou hate, and me undo, O let me live, yet lode and hate me too. THE EXPIRATION. Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away. Marriage rings are not of this stuff; Turn thou, ghost, that way, and let me turn this, Oh! why should aught less precious, or less tough, And let ourselves benight our happiest day; Figure our loves? except in thy name thou have As ask none leave to love; nor will we owe (m'away." Any so cheap a death, as saying, Go ; “ I'm cheap, and nought but fashion, fling Go; and if that word have not quite kill'd thee, Yet stay with me, since thou art come, Ease me with death, by bidding me go too. Circle this finger's top, which did'st her thumb: Or if it have, let my word work on me, Be justly proud, and gladly safe, that thon dost And a just office on a murd'rer do. dwell with me; [thee. Except it be too late to kill me so, She that, oh! broke her faith, would soon break Being double dead, going, and bidding, Ga. bid it say, THE COMPUTATION. FAREWELL TO LOVE. From my first twenty years, since yesterday, Whilst yet to prove I scarce believ'd thou could'st be gone away, I thought there was some deity in love, [last. For forty more I fed on favours past, So did I reverence, and gave As ignorantly did I crave: Thus when Things not yet known are coveted by men, Our desires give them fashion, and so, But from late fair Is not less car'd 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 pleas'd them all, takes but one sense, That any loves but he: 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, For though he seem to move, and stir awhile, 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 And when I come where moving beauties be, As men do, when the summer Sun Grows great, Though I admire their greatness, shun their heat; Each place can afford shadows. If all fail, (Which cannot be, 'T is but applying worm-seed to the tail. And carry thee with me) SONG. Dear love, continne nice and chaste, For if you yield, you do me wrong; Let duller wits to love's end haste, I have enough to woo thee long. All pain and joy is in their way; The things we fear bring less annoy Than fear, and hope brings greater joy: But in themselves they cannot stay. Small favours will my prayers increase : Granting my suit, you give me all; And then my prayers must needs surcease, For I have made your godhead fall. Beasts cannot wit nor beauty see, They man's affections only move: Beasts other sports of love do prove, Then, Love, prolong my suit; for thus NIOBE. By children's birth and death I am become So dry, that I am now mine own sad tomb. And now the world is giv'n to scoff: A BURNT SHIP. Out of a fired ship, which by no way Say, I have made a perfect choice; But drowning could be rescu'd from the flame, Satiety ourselves may kill: Some men Jeap'd forth, and ever as they came Then give me but thy face and voice, Near the foe's ships, did by their shot decay: Mine eye and ear thou canst not fill. So all were lost which in the ship were found, They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship To make me rich, oh! be not poor, drown'd. Give me not all, yet something lend; So I shall still my suit commend, FALL OF A WALL. Under an under-mind and shot-bruis'd wall, A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW. A LAME BEGGAR. 6 I am unable,” yonder beggar crics, These three hours, that we have spent “ To stand or move;" if he say true, he lies. Walking here, to shadows went Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd; But now the Sun is just above our head, A SELF-ACCUSER. We do those shadows tread: And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd. Your mistress, that you follow whores, still taxeth So whilst our infant loves did grow, you; Disguises did and shadows flow T is strange, that she should thus confess it, though 't From us and our cares : but now 't is not so. be true. A LICENTIOUS PERSON. For as thy sins increase, thy hairs do fall. ANTIQUARY. If in his study he bath so much care To hang all old strange things, let his wife beware. But oh! love's day is short, if love decay. Love is a growing, or full constant light; DISINHERITED. Tuy father all from thee, by his last will, MERCURIUS GALLO-BELGICUS. JEALOUSY. ort as can RADERUS. For though her eyes be small, her mouth is great; Why this man gelded Martial, I amuse; Though their's be ivory, yet her teeth be jet; Though they be dim, yet she is light enough, And though her harsh hair 's foul, her skin is rough; Meet in one, that one must, as perfect, please. Like Esop's fellow-slaves, O Mercury, If red and white, and each good quality Which could do all things, thy faith is; and I Be in thy wench, ne'er ask where it doth lie. Like Esop's self, which nothing ; I confess, In buying things perfum'd, we ask if there I should have had more faith, if thou had'st less; Be musk and amber in it, but not where. Thy credit lost thy credit: 't is sin to do, Though all her parts be not in th' usual place, In this case, as thou would'st be done unto, Sh' hath yet the anagrams of a good face. To believe all : change thy name; thou art like If we might put the letters but one way, Mercury in stealing, but liest like a Greek. In that lean dearth of words, what could we say? When by the gamut some musicians make Compassion in the world again is bred : A perfect song; others will undertake, By the same gamut chang'd, to equal it. And if none be, then she is singular. All love is wonder; if we justly do Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies; Choose this face, chang'd by no deformities. Like those which fell to worse: but such as she, 'T is less grief to be foul, than t have been fair. If swoln with poison he lay in 's last bed, For one night's revel silk and gold we choose, His body with a serecloth covered, But in long journies cloth and leather use. Drawing his breath, as thick and Beauty is barren oft ; best husbands say, The nimblest crocheting musician, There is best land, where there is foulest way. Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew Oh, what a sovereign plaster will she be, His soul out of one Hell into a new, If thy past sins have taught thee jealousy ! Made deaf with his poor kindred's bowling cries, Here needs no spies nor eunuchs, her commit Begging with few feign'd tears great legacies, Safe to thy foes, yea, to a marmosit. Thou woald'st not weep, but jolly and frolic be, Like Belgia's cities, when the country drowns, As a slave which to morrow should be free; That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns; Yet weep'st thou, when thou seest him hungerly So doth her face guard her; and so for thee, Saallow his own death, heart's-bane jealousy. Who, forc'd by business, absent oft must be ; O give him many thanks, he's courteous, She, whose face, like clouds, turns the day to night, That in suspecting kindly warneth us; Who, mightier than the sea, makes Moors seem We must not, as we us'd, flout openly white; In scoffing riddles his deformity: Whom, though seven years she in the stews had laid, Nor, at his board together being sat, A nunnery durst receive, and think a maid; With words, nor touch, scarce looks adulterate. And though in childbirth's labour she did lie, Nor, when he swoln and pamper'd with high fare Midwives would swear 't were but a tympany; Sits down and snorts, cag'd in his basket chair, Whom, if she accuse herself, I credit less Must we usurp his own bed any more, Than witches, which impossibles confess. Nor kiss and play in his house, as before. One like none, and lik'd of none, fittest were ; Now do I see my danger; for it is For things in fashion every man will wear. BLEGY III. CHANGE. ALTHOUGH thy hand and faith, and good works too, Do London's mayor; or Germans the pope's pride. Have seal'd thy love, which nothing should undo, Yea though thou fall back, that apostasy Women are like the arts, forc'd unto none, Open to all searchers, unpriz'd if unknown. If I have caught a bird, and let him fly, Another fowler, using those means as I, MARRY, and love thy Flavia, for she May catch the same bird; and as these things be, Hath all things, whereby others beauteous be; Women are made for men; not him, nor me. Foxes, goats, and all beasts,change when they please, But, oh! too common ill, I brought with me But as we in our isle imprisoned, The precious unicorns strange monsters call, And unsuspected hast invisibly To love not any one, nor every one. At once fed unto him, and stay'd with me. To live in one land is captivity, Base excrement of earth, which dost confound To run all countries a wild roguery; Sense from distinguishing the sick from sound; Waters stink soon, if in one place they 'bide, By thee the silly amorous sucks his death, And in the vast sea are more putrify'd: By drawing in a leprous harlot's breath; There things, that seem, exceed substantial. You 're loathsome all, being ta'en simply alone, Shall we love ill things join'd, and hate each one? THE PERFUME. If you were.good, your good doth soon decay; And you are rare, that takes the good away. T embalm thy father's corse. What! will he die ? ELEGY V. HIS PICTURE. When weather-beaten I come back; my hand Takes this advantage to sleep out day-light, Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun-beams tann'd; And watch thy entries and returns all night; My face and breast of hair-cloth, and my head And, when she takes thy hand, and would seem kind, With care's harsh sudden hoariness o'erspread; Doth search what rings and armlets she can find; My body a sack of bones, broken within, And kissing notes the colour of thy face, And powder's blue stains scatter'd on my skip : And fearing lest thou 'rt swoln, doth thee embrace; If rival fools tax thee t' have lov'd a man And, to try if thou long, doth name strange meats, So foul and coarse, as, oh! I may seem then, And notes thy paleness, blushes, sighs, and sweats. This shall say what I was : and thou shalt say, And politicly will to thee confess “Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay? The sins of her own youth's rank lustiness ; Or do they reach his judging mind, that he Yet love these sorc'ries did remove, and move Should now love less, what he did love to see? Thee to gull thine own mother for my love. That which in him was fair and delicate, Thy little brethren, which like fairy sprites Was but the milk, which in love's childish state Oft skipp'd into our chamber those sweet nights, Did nurse it: who now is grown strong enough And kiss'd and dandled on thy father's knee, To feed on that, which to weak tastes seems tough." 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 oaths, and only then, He that, to bar the first gate, doth as wide ELEGY VI. As the great Rhodian Colossus stride, Which, if in Hell no other pains there were, OH! let me not serve so, as those men serve, Makes me fear Hell, because he must be there : Whom honour's smokes at once flatter and starve: Though by thy father he were hir'd to this, Poorly enrich'd with great men's words or looks: Could never witness any touch or kiss. Nor so write my name in thy loving books ; |