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 proportiön,

Give it a diet, made it feed upon

That which love worst endures, discretiön.

Above one sigh a day I allow'd 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
'T was 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 nourish'd not;
If he suck'd hers, I let him know

'T was 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 her letters when she writ to me ;

And if that favour made him fat,

I said, “If any title be

Convey'd by this, ah! what doth it avail,

To be the fortieth name in an entail?"

Thus I reclaim'd my buzzard5 love, to flie

At what, and when, and how, and where I choose. Now negligent of sports I lie,

And now, as other falconers use,

I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep; And the game kill'd, or lost, go talk or sleep.

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 who loves me.

But every modern god will now extend
His vast prerogative as far as Joye.

To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the god of love.
O! were we waken'd 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 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.

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.

Both these were monsters; since there must reside
Falsehood in woman, I could more abide,

She were by art, than nature falsified.