And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;
Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
I fill it full with wills, and my will one:
In things of great receipt with ease we prove,
Among a number one is reckon❜d none.
Then in a number let me pass untold,
Tho' in thy store's account I one must be :
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.
Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
And then thou lov'st me, for my name is Will.
HIS HEART WOUNDED BY HER EYE.
Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold, and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies;
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,
Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride;
Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is ty'd?
Why should my heart think that a several plot,
Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?
Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
To put fair truth upon so foul a face;
In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd, And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.
O! call me not to justify the wrong,
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue;
Use power with power, and slay me not by art:
Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside;
What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might
Is more than my o'er-prest defence can bide?
Let me excuse thee; ah! my love well knows,
Her pretty looks have been my enemies,
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries.
Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,
Kill me out-right with looks, and rid my pain.
Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press
My tongue-ty'd patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Tho' not to love, yet love to tell me so:
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know.
For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee;
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
That I may not be so, nor thou bely'd,
Bear thine eyes strait, tho' thy proud heart go wide.
In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleas'd to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits, nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee;
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin, rewards my pain.
Love is my sin, and my dear virtue, hate;
Hate of sin, grounded on a sinful loving :
O! but with mine, compare thou thine own state,
And thou shall find it merits not reproving:
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments,
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robb'd other beds' revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful, I love thee, as thou lov'st those,
Whom thine eyes woo, as mine importune thee;
Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pity be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example may'st thou be deny'd!
Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away;
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch,
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:
Whilst her neglected child holds in her chase,
Cries to catch her, whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face;
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent.
So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.
So will I pray, that thou may'st have thy will,
If thou turn back, and my loud crying still.
Those lips that love's own hand did make,
Breath'd forth the sound that said, I hate,
To me that languish'd for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come;
Chiding that tongue, that, ever sweet,
Was us'd in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
I hate, she alter'd with an end
That follow'd it, as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
I hate, from hate away she threw,
And sav'd my life, saying, not you.)
A CONSIDERATION OF DEATH.
Poor soul! the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth, these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls in costly clay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy faded mansion spend ?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more.
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men;
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.
IMMODERATE PASSION.
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease ;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve ;
Desire is death, which physick did accept.
Past cure I am, now reason is past cure;
And frantick mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd.
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
LOVE'S POWERFUL SUBTLETY.
O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote,
Love's eye is not so true as all men's. No.
How can it? O how can love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, tho' I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
O! cunning love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not?
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
All of myself, all tyrant for thy sake?
Who hatest thou, that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise ;
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But love, hate on; for now I know thy mind,
Those that can see, thou lov'st, and I am blind.
Oh! from what power hast thou this powerful might, With insufficiency my heart to sway;
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds,
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
Oh! tho' I love what others do abhor,
With others thou should'st not abhor my state.
If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,
More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.
So oft have I invok'd thee for my muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse,
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned's wing,
And given grace a double majesty :
Yet be most proud of that, which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee;
In other works thou dost but mend the style;
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be:
But thou art all my art, and dost advance,
As high as learning, my rude ignorance.
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