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Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,
As though I felt the worst that love could do?
Love may make me leave loving, or might try
A deeper plague, to make her love me too;
Which, since she loves before, I'm loth to see.
Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,
If she whom I love should love me.

? might

THE PRIMROSE

BEING AT MONTGOMERY CASTLE UPON THE

HILL ON WHICH IT IS SITUATE

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 't is 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, and not to love.

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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, woman, 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 five, women may take us all.

THE BLOSSOM

LITTLE think'st thou, poor flower,
Whom I've watch'd 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
To-morrow find thee fallen, or not at all.

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

And hopest her stiffness by long siege to bow,
Little think'st thou,

That thou to-morrow, ere that sun doth wake, Must with this sun and me a journey take.

But thou which lovest 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 taste, and every part; If then your body go, what need your heart?

Well then, stay here; but know,

When thou hast stay'd and done thy most, A naked thinking heart, that makes no show, Is to a woman but a kind of ghost.

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How shall she know my heart? or, having none, Know thee for one?

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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 stay'd still with her and thee. For God's sake, if you can, be you so too;

I will give you

There to another friend, whom we shall find
As glad to have my body as my mind.

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