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 PARADOX

No lover saith, I love; nor any other
Can judge a perfect lover;

He thinks that else none can, nor will agree,

I

cannot say I loved, for who can say

He was kill'd 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 die.

NEGATIVE LOVE

I NEVER stoop'd 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;
I miss whene'er I crave,

For

may

If I know yet what I would have.

If that be simply perfectest,
Which can by no way be express'd
But negatives, my love is so.

To all which all love, I say no.

If any who deciphers best,

What we know not · ourselves

Let him teach me that nothing. This
As yet my ease and comfort is,
Though I speed not, I cannot miss.

can know,

THE ECSTACY

WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,

A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest The violet's reclining head,

Sat we two, one another's best.

Our hands were firmly cemented

By a fast balm, which thence did spring; Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread Our eyes upon one double string.

So to engraft our hands, as yet

Was all our means to make us one;

And pictures in our eyes to get

Was all our propagatiön.

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,

This ecstacy 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 mix'd 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.