grow good But I remaine a poyson'd fountaine still But not your beauty vertue knowledge blood Are more above all flattery then my will And if I flatter any 't is not you But my owne judgement who did long agoe Pronounce that all these praises should be true And vertue should your beauty ' and birth outgrow Now that my prophesies are all fulfill'd Rather then God should not be honour'd too And all these gifts confess'd which hee instill'd Your selfe were bound to say that which I doe So I but your Recorder am in this Or mouth or Speaker of the universe A ministeriall notary for 't is Not I but you and fame that make this verse I was your Prophet in your yonger dayes And now your Chaplaine God in you to praise To M. I. W. ALl haile sweet Poët more full of more strong fire Then hath or shall enkindle any spirit I lov'd what nature gave thee but this merit Of wit and Art I love not but admire Who have before or shall write after thee Their workes though toughly laboured will bee Like infancie or age to mans firme stay Or earely and late twilights to mid-day Men say and truly that they better be Which be envyed then pittied therefore I Because I wish thee best doe thee envie O wouldst thou by like reason pitty mee But care not for mee I that ever was In Natures and in fortunes gifts alas Before thy grace got in the Muses Schoole A monster and a begger am a foole Oh how I grieve that late borne modesty Hath got such root in easie waxen hearts That men may not themselves their owne good parts Extoll without suspect of surquedrie For but thy selfe no subject can be found Worthy thy quill nor any quill resound Thy worke but thine how good it were to see A Poëm in thy praise and writ by thee Now if this song be too'harsh for rime yet as The Painters bad god made a good devill 'T will be good prose although the verse be evill If thou forget the rime as thou dost passe Then write then I may follow and so bee Thy debter thy'eccho thy foyle thy zanee I shall be thought if mine like thine I shape All the worlds Lyon though I be thy Ape To M. T. W. HAst thee harsh verse as fast as thy lame measure Will give thee leave to him My pain pleasure I have given thee and yet thou art too weake Feete and a reasoning soule and tongue to speake Tell him all questions which men have defended Both of the place and paines of hell are ended And 't is decreed our hell is but privation Of him at least in this earths habitation And 't is where I am where in every street Infections follow overtake and meete Live I or die by you my love is sent And you' are my pawnes or else my Testament To M. T. W. PRegnant again with th' old twins Hope and Feare Oft have I askt for thee both how and where Thou wert and what my hopes of letters were As in our streets sly beggers narrowly Watch motions of the givers hand or eye And evermore conceive some hope thereby And now thy Almes is given thy letter'is read The body risen againe the which was dead And thy poore starveling bountifully fed After this banquet my Soule doth say grace And praise thee for'it and zealously imbrace Thy love though I thinke thy love in this case To be as gluttons which say ' midst their meat They love that best of which they most do eat At once from hence my lines and I depart I to my soft still walks they to my Heart I to the Nurse they to the child of Art Yet as a firme house though the Carpenter Perish doth stand as an Embassadour Lyes safe how e'r his king be in danger So though I languish prest with Malancholy My verse the strict Map of my misery Shall live to see that for whose want I dye Therefore I envie them and doe repent That from unhappy mee things happy'are sent Yet as a Picture or bare Sacrament Accept these lines and if in them there be Merit of love bestow that love on mee To M. C. B. THy friend whom thy deserts to thee enchaine Urg'd by this unexcusable occasion Thee and the Saint of his affection Leaving behinde doth of both wants complaine And let the love I beare to both sustaine No blott nor maime by this division Strong is this love which ties our hearts in one And strong that love pursu'd with amorous paine But though besides thy selfe I leave behind Heavens liberall and earths thrice-faire Sunne Going to where sterne winter aye doth wonne Yet loves hot fires which martyr my sad minde Doe send forth scalding sighes which have the Art To melt all Ice but that which walls her heart To M. S. B. O Thou which to search out the secret parts Of the India or rather Paradise Of knowledge hast with courage and advise Lately launch'd into the vast Sea of Arts Disdaine not in thy constant travailing To doe as other Voyagers and make Some turnes into lesse Creekes and wisely take Fresh water at the Heliconian spring I sing not Siren like to tempt for I Am harsh nor as those Scismatiques with you Which draw all wits of good hope to their crew But seing in you bright sparkes of Poetry I though I brought no fuell had desire With these Articulate blasts to blow the fire To M. B. B. IS not thy sacred hunger of science Yet satisfy'd Is not thy braines rich hive Fulfil'd with hony which thou dost derive From the Arts spirits and their Quintessence Then weane thy selfe at last and thee withdraw From Cambridge thy old nurse and as the rest Here toughly chew and sturdily digest Th' immense vast volumes of our common law And begin soone lest my griefe grieve thee too Which is that that which I should have begun In my youthes morning now late must be done And I as Giddy Travellers must doe Which stray or sleepe all day and having lost Light and strength darke and tir'd must then ride post If thou unto thy Muse be marryed Embrace her ever ever multiply Be far from me that strange Adulterie To tempt thee and procure her widdowhood My nurse for I had one because I 'am cold Divorc'd her selfe the cause being in me That I can take no new in Bigamye Not my will only but power doth withhold Hence comes it that these Rymes which never had Mother want matter aud they only have A little forme the which their Father gave They are prophane imperfect oh too bad To be counted Children of Poetry Except confirm'd and Bishoped by thee To M. R. W. IF as mine is thy life a slumber be Seeme when thou read'st these lines to dreame of me Never did Morpheus nor his brother weare Shapes soe like those Shapes whom they would appeare As this my letter is like me for it Hath my name words hand feet heart minde
And one of those small bodies fitted so This soule inform'd and abled it to roe It selfe with finnie oares which she did fit Her scales seem'd yet of parchment and as yet Perchance a fish but by no name you could call it XXIV When goodly like a ship in her full trim A swan so white that you may unto him Compare all whitenesse but himselfe to none Glided along and as he glided watch'd And with his arched necke this poore fish catch'd It mov'd with state as if to looke upon Low things it scorn'd and yet before that one Could thinke he sought it he had swallowed cleare This and much such and unblam'd devour'd there All but who too swift too great or well arm'd were XXV Now swome a prison in a prison put And now this Soule in double walls was shut Till melted with the Swans digestive fire She left her house the fish and vapour'd forth Fate not affording bodies of more worth For her as yet bids her againe retire T'another fish to any new desire Made a new prey For he that can to none Resistance make nor complaint sure is gone Weaknesse invites but silence feasts oppression XXVI Pace with the native streame this fish doth keepe And journeyes with her towards the glassie deepe But oft retarded once with a hidden net Though with great windowes for when need first taught These tricks to catch food thē they were not wrought As now with curious greedinesse to let None scape but few and fit for use to get As in this trap a ravenous pike was tane Who though himselfe distrest would faine have slain This wretch So hardly are ill habits left again XXVII Here by her smallnesse shee two deaths orepast Once innocence scap'd and left the oppressor fast The net through-swome she keepes the liquid path And whether she leape up sometimes to breath And suck in aire or finde it underneath Or working parts like mills or limbecks hath To make the wether thinne and airelike faith Cares not but safe the Place she 's come unto Where fresh with salt waves meet and what to doe She knowes not but betweene both makes a boord or two XXVIII So farre from hiding her guests water is That she showes them in bigger quantities Then they are Thus doubtfull of her way For game and not for hunger a sea Pie Spied through this traiterous spectacle from high The seely fish where it disputing lay And t' end her doubts and her beares her away Exalted she'is but to the exalters good As are by great ones men which lowly stood It 's rais'd to be the Raisers instrument and food XXIX Is any kinde subject to rape like fish Ill unto man they neither doe nor wish Fishers they kill not nor with noise awake They doe not hunt nor strive to make a prey Of beasts nor their yong sonnes to beare away Foules they pursue not nor do undertake To spoile the nests industruous birds do make Yet them all these unkinde kinds feed upon To kill them is an occupation And lawes make fasts lents for their destruction XXX A sudden stiffe land-winde in that selfe houre To sea-ward forc'd this bird that did devour The fish he cares not for with ease he flies Fat gluttonies best orator at last So long hee hath flowen and hath flowen so fast That leagues o'er-past at sea now tir'd hee lyes And with his prey that till then languisht dies The soules no longer foes two wayes did erre The fish I follow and keepe no calender Of the other he lives yet in some great officer XXXI Into an embrion fish our Soule is throwne And in due time throwne out againe and growne To such vastnesse as if unmanacled From Greece Morea were and that by some Earthquake unrooted loose Morea swome Or seas from Africks body had severed And torne the hopefull Promontories head This fish would seeme these and when all hopes faile A great ship overset or without saile Hulling might when this was a whelp be like this whale XXXII At every stroake his brazen finnes do take More circles in the broken sea they make Then cannons voices when the aire they teare His ribs are pillars and his high arch'd roofe Of barke that blunts best steele is thunder-proofe Swimme in him swallowed Dolphins without feare And feele no sides as if his vast wombe were Some Inland sea and ever as hee went Hee spouted rivers up as if he ment To joyne our seas with seas above the firmament XXXIII He hunts not fish but as an officer Stayes in his court at his owne net and there All suitors of all sorts themselves enthrall So on his backe lyes this whale wantoning And in his gulfe-like throat sucks every thing That passeth neare Fish chaseth fish and all Flyer and follower in this whirlepoole fall O might not states of more equality Consist and is it of necessity That thousand guiltlesse smals to make one great must die XXXIV Now drinkes he up seas and he eates up flocks He justles Ilands and he shakes firme rockes Now in a roomefull house this Soule doth float And like a Prince she sends her faculties To all her limbes distant as Provinces The Sunne hath twenty times both crab and goate Parched since first lanch'd forth this living boate 'T is greatest now and to destruction Nearest There 's no pause at perfection Greatnesse a period hath but hath no station XXXV Two little fishes whom hee never harm'd Nor fed on their kinde two not throughly arm'd With hope that they could kill him nor could doe Good to themselves by his death they did not eate His flesh nor suck those oyles which thence outstreat Conspir'd against him and it might undoe The plot of all that the plotters were two But that they fishes were and could not speake How shall a Tyran wise strong projects breake If wreches can on them the common anger wreake XXXVI The flaile-find Thresher and steel-beak'd Sword-fish Onely attempt to doe what all doe wish The Thresher backs him and to beate begins The sluggard Whale yeelds to oppression And t'hide himselfe from shame and danger downe Begins to sinke the Swordfish upward spins And gores him with his beake his staffe-like finnes So were the one his sword the other plyes That now a scoffe and prey this tyran dyes And his owne dole feeds with himselfe all companies XXXVII Who will revenge his death or who will call Those to account that thought and wrought his fall The heires of slaine kings wee see are often so Transported with the joy of what they get That they revenge and obsequies forget Nor will against such men the people goe Because h 'is now dead to whom they should show Love in that act Some kings by vice being growne So needy of subjects love that of their won They thinke they lose if love be to the dead Prince shown XXXVIII This Soule now free from prison and passion Hath yet a little indignation That so small hammers
Philo with twelve yeares study hath beene griev'd To'be understood when will hee be beleev'd Klockius so deeply hath sworne ne'r more to come In bawdie house that hee dares not goe home Raderus Why this man gelded Martiall I muse Except himselfe alone his tricks would use As Katherine for the Courts sake put downe Stewes Mercurlus Gallo-Belgicus Like Esops fellow-slaves O Mercury Which could do all things thy faith is and I Like Esops selfe which nothing I confesse I should have had more faith if thou hadst lesse Thy credit lost thy credit 'T is sinne to doe In this case as thou wouldst be done unto To beleeve all Change thy name thou art like Mercury in stealing but lyest like a Greeke Compassion in the world againe is bred Ralphius is sick the broker keeps his bed ELEGIE I. FOnd woman which would'st have thy husband die And yet complain'st of his great jealousie If swolne with poyson hee lay in'his last bed His body with a sere-barke covered Drawing his breath as thick and short as can The nimblest crocheting Musitian Ready with loathsome vomiting to spue His Soule out of one hell into a new Made deafe with his poore kindreds howling cries Begging with few feign'd teares great legacies Thou would'st not weepe but jolly ' and frolicke bee As a slave which to morrow should be free Yet weep'st thou when thou seest him hungerly Swallow his owne death hearts-bane jealousie O give him many thanks he 'is courteous That in suspecting kindly warneth us Wee must not as wee us'd flout openly In scoffing ridles his deformitie Nor at his boord together being satt With words nor touch scarce lookes adulterate Nor when he swolne and pamper'd with great fare Sits downe and snorts cag'd in his basket chaire Must wee usurpe his owne bed any more Nor kisse and play in his house as before Now I see many dangers for it is His realme his castle and his diocesse But if as envious men which would revile Their Prince or coyne his gold themselves exile Into another countrie ' and doe it there Wee play'in another house what should we feare There we will scorne his houshold policies His seely plots and pensionary spies As the inhabitants of Thames right side Do Londons Major or Germans the Popes pride Elegie II. Marry and love thy Flavia for shee Hath all things whereby others beautious bee For though her eyes be small her mouth is great Though they be Ivory yet her teeth be jear Though they be dimme yet she is light enough And though her harsh haire fall her skinne is rough What though her cheeks be yellow her haire 's red Give her thine and she hath a maydenhead These things are beauties elements where these Meet in one that one must as perfect please If red and white and each good quality Be in thy wench ne'r aske where it doth lye In buying things perfum'd we aske if there Be muske and amber in it but not where Though all her parts be not in th'usuall place She'hath yet an Anagram of a good face If we might put the letters but one way In the leane dearth of words what could wee say When by the Gamut some Musitions make A perfect song others will undertake By the same Gamut chang'd to equall it Things simply good can never be unfit She 's faire as any if all be like her And if none bee then she is singular All love is wonder if wee justly doe Account her wonderfull why not lovely too Love built on beauty soone as beauty dies Chuse this face chang'd by no deformities Women are all like Angels the faire be Like those which fell to worse but such as shee Like to good Angels nothing can impaire 'T is lesse griefe to be foule then to'have beene faire For one nights revels silke and gold we chuse But in long journeyes cloth and leather use Beauty is barren oft best husbands say There is best land where there is foulest way Oh what a soveraigne Plaister will shee bee If thy past sinnes have taught thee jealousie Here needs no spies nor eunuches her commit Safe to thy foes yea to a Marmosit When Belgiaes citties the round countries drowne That durty foulenesse guards and armes the towne So doth her face guard her and so for thee Which forc'd by businesse absent oft must bee Shee whose face like clouds turnes the day to night Who mightier thē the sea makes Moores seem white Who though seaven yeares she in the Stews had laid A Nunnery durst receive and thinke a maid And though in childbeds labour she did lie Midwifes would sweare 't were but a tympanie Whom if shee accuse her selfe I credit lesse Then witches which impossibles confesse One like none and lik'd of none fittest were For things in fashion every man will weare Elegie III. Although thy hand and faith and good workes too Have seal'd thy love which nothing should undoe Yea though thou fall backe that apostasie Confirme thy love yet much much I feare thee Women are like the Arts forc'd unto none Open to'all searchers unpriz'd if unknowne If I have caught a bird and let him flie Another fouler using these meanes as I May catch the same bird and as these things bee Women are made for men not him nor mee Foxes and goats all beasts change when they please Shall women more hot wily wild then these Be bound to one man and did Nature then Idly make them apter to'endure then men They' are our clogges not their owne if a man bee Chain'd to a galley yet the galley'is free Who hath a plow-land casts all his seed corne there And yet allowes his ground more corne should beare Though Danuby into the sea must flow The sea receives the Rhene Volga and Po. By nature which gave it this liberty Thou lov'st but Oh! canst thou love it and mee Likenesse glues love and if that thou so doe To make us like and love must I change too More then thy hate I hate'it rather let mee Allow her change then change as oft as shee And soe not teach but force my'opinion To love not any one nor every one To live in one land is captivitie To runne all countries a wild roguery Waters stincke soone if in one place they bide And in the vast sea are more putrifi'd But when they kisse one banke and leaving this Never looke backe but the next banke doe kisse Then are they purest Change'is the nursery Of musicke joy life and eternity Elegie IV. Once and but once found in thy company All thy suppos'd escapes are laid on mee And as a thiefe at barre is question'd there By all the men that have beene rob'd that yeare So am I by this traiterous meanes surpriz'd By thy Hydroptique father catechiz'd Though hee hath oft sworne that hee would remove Thy beauties beautie and food of our love Hope of his goods if I with thee were seene Yet close and secret as our soules we'have beene Though thy
immortall mother which doth lye Still buried in her bed yet will not dye Takes this advantage to sleepe out day-light And watch thy entries and returnes all night And when she takes thy hand and would seeme kind Doth search what rings and armelets she can finde And kissing notes the colour of thy face And fearing least thou' art swolne doth thee embrace To trie if thou long doth name strange meates And notes thy palenesse blushing sighs and sweats And politiquely will to thee confesse The sinnes of her owne youths ranke lustinesse Yet love these Sorceries did remove and move Thee to gull thine owne mother for my love Thy little brethren which like Faiery Sprights Oft skipt into our chamber those sweet nights And kist and ingled on thy fathers knee 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 oathes and onely than He that to barre the first gate doth as wide As the great Rhodian Colossus stride Which if in hell no other paines there were Makes mee feare hell because he must be there Though by thy father he were hir'd to this Could never witnesse any touch or kisse But Oh too common ill I brought with mee That which betray'd mee to my enemie A loud perfume which at my entrance cryed Even at thy fathers nose so were wee spied When like a tyran King that in his bed Smelt gunpowder the pale wretch shivered Had it beene some bad smell he would have thought That his owne feet or breath that smell had wrought But as wee in our I le emprisoned Where cattell onely ' and diverse dogs are bred The pretious Vnicornes strange monsters call So thought he good strange that had none at all I taught my silkes their whistling to forbeare Even my opprest shoes dumbe and speechlesse were Onely thou bitter sweet whom I had laid Next mee mee traiterously hast betraid And unsuspected hast invisibly At once fled unto him and staid with mee Base excrement of earth which dost confound Sense from distinguishing the sicke from sound By thee the seely Amorous sucks his death By drawing in a leprous harlots breath By thee the greatest staine to mans estate Falls on us to be call'd effeminate Though you be much lov'd in the Princes hall There things that seeme exceed substantiall Gods when yee fum'd on altars were pleas'd well Because you'were burnt not that they lik'd your smell You' are loathsome all being taken simply alone Shall wee love ill things joyn'd and hate each one If you were good your good doth soone decay And you are rare that takes the good away All my perfumes I give most willingly To'embalme thy fathers corse What will hee die Elegie V. Here take my Picture though I bid farewell Thine in my heart where my soule dwels shall dwell 'T is like me now but I dead 't will be more When wee are shadowes both then 't was before When weather-beaten I come backe my hand Perhaps with rude oares torne or Sun beams tann'd My face and brest of hairecloth and my head With cares rash sodaine stormes being o'rspread My body'a sack of bones broken within And powders blew staines scatter'd on my skinne If rivall fooles taxe thee to'have lov'd a man So foule and course as Oh I may seeme than This shall say what I was and thou shalt say Doe his hurts reach mee doth my worth decay Or doe they reach his judging minde that hee Should now love lesse what hee did love to see That which in him was faire and delicate Was but the milke which in loves childish state Did nurse it who now is growne strong enough To feed on that which to disus'd tasts seemes tough Elegie VI. Sorrow who to this house scarce knew the way Is Oh heire of it our All is his prey This strange chance claimes strange wonder and to us ' Nothing can be so strange as to weepe thus 'T is well his life 's loud speaking workes deserve And give praise too our cold tongues could not serve 'T is well hee kept teares from our eyes before That to fit this deep ill we might have store Oh if a sweet briar climbe up by'a tree If to a paradise that transplanted bee Or fell'd and burnt for holy sacrifice Yet that must wither which by it did rise As wee for him dead though no familie Ere rigg'd a soule for heavens discoverie With whom more Venturers more boldly dare Venture their states with him in joy to share Wee lose what all friends lov'd him he gaines now But life by death which worst foes would allow If hee could have foes in whose practise grew All vertues whose names subtile Schoolmen knew What ease can hope that wee shall see'him beget When wee must die first and cannot dye yet His children are his pictures Oh they bee Pictures of him dead senselesse cold as he Here needs no marble Tombe since hee is gone He and about him his are turn'd to stone Elegie VII Oh let mee not serve so as those men serve Whom honours smoakes at once fatten and sterve Poorely enrich't with great mens words or lookes Nor so write my name in thy loving bookes As those Idolatrous flatterers which still Their Princes stiles which many Realmes fulfill Whence they no tribute have and where no sway Such services I offer as shall pay Themselves I hate dead names Oh then let mee Favorite in Ordinary or no favorite bee When my Soule was in her owne body sheath'd Nor yet by oathes betroth'd nor kisses breath'd Into my Purgatory faithlesse thee Thy heart seem'd waxe and steele thy constancie So carelesse flowers strow'd on the waters face The curled whirlepooles suck smack and embrace Yet drowne them so the tapers beamie eye Amorously twinkling beckens the giddie flie Yet burnes his wings and such the devill is Scarce visiting them who are intirely his When I behold a streame which from the spring Doth with doubtfull melodious murmuring Or in a speechlesse slumber calmely ride Her wedded channels bosome and then chide And bend her browes and swell if any bough Do but stoop downe or kisse her upmost brow Yet if her often gnawing kisses winne The traiterous banks to gape and let her in She rusheth violently and doth divorce Her from her native and her long-kept course And rores and braves it and in gallant scorne In flattering eddies promising retorne She flouts the channell who thenceforth is drie Then say I that is shee and this am I. Yet let not thy deepe bitternesse beget Carelesse despaire in mee for that will whet My minde to scorne and Oh love dull'd with paine Was ne'r so wise nor well arm'd as disdaine Then with new eyes I shall survay thee ' and spie Death in thy cheekes and darknesse in thine eye Though hope bred faith and love thus taught I shall As nations do from Rome from thy love fall My hate shall outgrow thine and utterly I will renounce thy dalliance and when
commend Who knowes thy destiny when thou hast done Perchance her Cabinet may harbour thee Whither all noble ambitious wits doe runne A nest almost as full of Good as shee When thou art there if any whom wee know Were sav'd before and did that heaven partake When she revolves his papers marke what show Of favour she alone to them doth make Marke if to get them she o'r skip the rest Marke if shee read them twice or kisse the name Marke if she doe the same that they protest Marke if she marke whether her woman came Marke if slight things be'objected and o'r blowne Marke if her oathes against him be not still Reserv'd and that shee grieves she 's not her owne And chides the doctrine that denies Freewill Ibid thee not doe this to be my spie Nor to make my selfe her familiar But so much I doe love her choyce that I Would faine love him that shall be lov'd of her To the Countesse of Bedford HOnour is so sublime perfection And so refinde that when God was alone And creaturelesse at first himselfe had none But as of the elements these which wee tread Produce all things with which wee'are joy'd or fed And those are barren both above our head So from low persons doth all honour flow Kings whom they would have honoured to us show And but direct our honour not bestow For when from herbs the pure part must be wonne From grosse by Stilling this is better done By despis'd dung then by the fire or Sunne Care not then Madame ' how low your prayses lye In labourers balads oft more piety God findes then in Te Deums melodie And ordinance rais'd on Towers so many mile Send not their voice nor last so long a while As fires from th' earths low vaults in Sicil Isle Should I say I liv'd darker then were true Your radiation can all clouds subdue But one 't is best light to contemplate you You for whose body God made better clay Or tooke Soules stuffe such as shall late decay Or such as needs small change at the last day This as an Amber drop enwraps a Bee Covering discovers your quicke Soule that we May in your through-shine front our hearts thoughts see You teach though wee learne not a thing unknowne To our late times the use of specular stone Through which all things within without were shown Of such were Temples so and such you are Beeing and seeming is your equall care And vertues whole summe is but know and dare But as our Soules of growth and Soules of sense Have birthright of our reasons Soule yet hence They fly not from that nor seeke presidence Natures first lesson so discretion Must not grudge zeale a place nor yet keepe none Not banish it selfe nor religion Discretion is a wisemans Soule and so Religion is a Christians and you know How these are one her yea is not her no. Nor may we hope to sodder still and knit These two and dare to breake them nor must wit Be colleague to religion but be it In those poore types of God round circles so Religions tipes the peeclesse centers flow And are in all the lines which alwayes goe If either ever wrought in you alone Or principally then religion Wrought your ends and your wayes discretion Goe thither stil goe the same way you went Who so would change do covet or repent Neither can reach you great and innocent To the Countesse of Bedford Begun in France but never perfected THough I be dead and buried yet I have Living in you Court enough in my grave As oft as there I thinke my selfe to bee So many resurrections waken mee That thankfullnesse your favours have forgot In mee embalmes mee that I doe not rot This season as'tis Easter as'tis spring Must both to growth and to confession bring My thoughts dispos'd unto your influence so These verses bud so these confessions grow First I confesse I have to others lent Your stock and over prodigally spent Your treasure for since I had never knowne Vertue or beautie but as they are growne In you I should not thinke or say they shine So as I have in any other Mine Next I confesse this my confession For 't is some fault thus much to touch upon Your praise to you where half rights seeme too much And make your minds sincere complexion blush Next I confesse my'impenitence for I Can scarce repent my first fault since thereby Remote low Spirits which shall ne'r read you May in lesse lessons finde enough to doe By studying copies not Originals Desunt caetera A Letter to the Lady Carey and Mrs Essex Riche From Amyens MADAME HEre where by All All Saints invoked are 'T were too much schisme to be singular And ' gainst a practise generall to warre Yet turning to Saincts should my'humility To other Sainct then you directed bee That were to make my schisme heresie Nor would I be a Convertite so cold As not to tell it If this be too bold Pardons are in this market cheaply sold Where because Faith is in too low degree I thought it some Apostleship in mee To speake things which by faith alone I see That is of you who is a firmament Of virtues where no one is growne or spent They' are your materials not your ornament Others whom wee call vertuous are not so In their whole substance but their vertues grow But in their humours and at seasons show For when through tastlesse flat humilitie In dow bak'd men some harmelessenes we see 'T is but his flegme that 's Vertuous and not Hee Soe is the Blood sometimes who ever ran To danger unimportun'd he was than No better then a sanguine Vertuous man So cloysterall men who in pretence of feare All contributions to this life forbeare Have Vertue in Melancholy and only there Spirituall Cholerique Crytiques which in all Religions find faults and forgive no fall Have through their zeale Vertue but in their Gall. We are thus but parcel guilt to Gold we' are growne When Vertue is our Soules complexion Who knowes his Vertues name or place hath none Vertue'is but aguish when 't is severall By occasion wak'd and circumstantiall True vertue is Soule Alwaies in all deeds All. This Vertue thinking to give dignitie To your soule found there no infirmitie For your soule was as good Vertue as shee Shee therefore wrought upon that part of you Which is scarce lesse then soule as she could do And so hath made your beauty Vertue too Hence comes it that your Beauty wounds not hearts As Others with prophane and sensuall Darts But as an influence vertuous thoughts imparts But if such friends by the honor of your sight Grow capable of this so great a light As to partake your vertues and their might What must I thinke that influence must doe Where it findes sympathie and matter too Vertue and beauty of the same stuffe as you Which is your noble worthie sister shee Of whom if what in
nature put thee in And to deliver up to God that state Of which he gave thee the vicariate Which is thy soule and body as intire As he who takes endeavours doth require But didst not stay t' enlarge his kingdome too By making others what thou didst to doe Why shouldst thou Triumph now when Heav'n no more Hath got by getting thee then t 'had before For Heav'n and thou even when thou livedst here Of one another in possession were But this from Triumph most disables thee That that place which is conquered must bee Left safe from present warre and likely doubt Of imminent commotions to breake out And hath he left us so or can it bee His territory was no more then Hee No we were all his charge the Diocis Of ev'ry exemplar man the whole world is And he was joyned in commission With Tutelar Angels sent to every one But though this freedome to upbraid and chide Him who Triumph'd were lawfull it was ty'd With this that it might never reference have Unto the Senate who this triumph gave Men might at Pompey jeast but they might not At that authoritie by which he got Leave to Triumph before by age he might So though triumphant soule I dare to write Mov'd with a reverentiall anger thus That thou so earely wouldst abandon us Yet I am farre from daring to dispute With that great soveraigntie whose absolute Prerogative hath thus dispens'd with thee ' Gainst natures lawes which just impugners bee Of early triumphs And I though with paine Lessen our losse to magnifie thy gaine Of triumph when I say It was more fit That all men should lacke thee then thou lack it Though then in our time be not suffered That testimonie of love unto the dead To die with them and in their graves be hid As Saxon wives and French soldarii did And though in no degree I can expresse Griefe in great Alexanders great excesse Who at his friends death made whole townes devest Their walls and bullwarks which became them best Doe not faire soule this sacrifice refuse That in thy grave I doe interre my Muse Who by my griefe great as thy worth being cast Behind hand yet hath spoke and spoke her last Elegie AS the sweet sweat of Roses in a Still As that which frō chaf'd muskats pores doth trill As the Almighty Balme of th' early East Such are the sweat drops of my Mistris breast And on her necke her skin such lustre sets They seeme no sweat drops but pearle coronets Ranke sweaty froth thy Mistresse's brow defiles Like spermatique issue of ripe menstruous boiles Or like the skumme which by needs lawlesse law Enforc'd Sanserra's starved men did draw From parboild shooes and bootes and all the rest Which were with any soveraigne fatnes blest And like vile stones lying in saffrond tinne Or warts or wheales it hangs upon her skinne Round as the world 's her head on every side Like to the fatall Ball which fell on Ide Or that whereof God had such jealousie As for the ravishing thereof we die Thy head is like a rough-hewne statue of jeat Where marks for eyes nose mouth are yet scarce set Like the first Chaos or flat seeming face Of Cynthia when th' earths shadowes her embrace Like Proserpines white beauty-keeping chest Or Joues best fortunes urne is her faire brest Thine's like worme eaten trunkes cloth'd in seals skin Or grave that 's dust without and stinke within And like that slender stalke at whose end stands The wood-bine quivering are her armes and hands Like rough bark'd elmboughes or the russet skin Of men late scurg'd for madnes or for sinne Like Sun-parch'd quarters on the citie gate Such is thy tann'd skins lamentable state And like a bunch of ragged carrets stand The short swolne fingers of her gouty hand Then like the Chymicks masculine equall fire Which in the Lymbecks warme wombe doth inspire Into th' earths worthlesse part a soule of gold Such cherishing heat her best lov'd part doth hold Thine's like the dread mouth of a fired gunne Or like hot liquid metalls newly runne Into clay moulds or like to that Aetna Where round about the grasse is burnt away Are not your kisses then as filthy and more As a worme sucking an invenom'd sore Doth not thy fearefull hand in feeling quake As one which gath'ring flowers still feares a snake Is not your last act harsh and violent As where a Plough a stony ground doth rent So kisse good Turtles so devoutly nice Are Priests in handling reverent sacrifice And nice in searching wounds the Surgeon is As wee when wee embrace or touch or kisse Leave her and I will leave comparing thus She and comparisons are odious Elegie The Autumnall NO Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one Autumnall face Yong Beauties force our love and that 's a Rape This doth but counsaile yet you cannot scape If t' were a shame to love here t' were no shame Affections here take Reverences name Were her first yeares the Golden Age That 's true But now they' are gold oft tried and ever new That was her torrid and inflaming time This is her tolerable Tropique clyme Faire eyes who askes more heate then comes from hence He in a fever wishes pestilence Call not these wrinkles graves If graves they were They were Loves graves for else he is no where Yet lies not love dead here but here doth sit Vow'd to this trench like an Anachorit And here till hers which must be his death come He doth not digge a Grave but build a Tombe Iere dwells he though he sojourne ev'ry where In Progresse yet his standing house is here Iere where still Evening is not noone nor night Where no voluptuousnesse yet all delight In all her words unto all hearers fit You may at Revels you at counsaile sit This is loves timber youth his under-wood There he as wine in Iune enrages blood Which then comes seasonabliest when our tast And appetite to other things is past Xerxes strange Lydian love the Platane tree Was lov'd for age none being so large as shee Or else because being yong nature did blesse Her youth with ages glory Barrennesse If we love things long sought Age is a thing Which we are fifty yeares in compassing If transitory things which soone decay Age must be lovelyest at the latest day But name not Winter-faces whose skin 's slacke Lanke as an unthrifts purse but a soules sacke Whose Eyes seeke light within for all here 's shade Whose mouthes are holes rather worne out then made Whos 's every tooth to a severall place is gone To vexe their soules at Resurrection Name not these living Deaths-heads unto mee For these not Ancient but Antique be I hate extreames yet I had rather stay With Tombs then Cradles to weare out a day Since such loves motion natural is may still My love descend and journey downe the hill Not panting after growing beauties so I shall ebbe out
lips eyes thighs differ from thy two But so as thine from one another doe And oh no more the likenesse being such Why should they not alike in all parts touch Hand to strange hand lippe to lippe none denies Why should they brest to brest or thighs to thighs Likenesse begets such strange selfe flatterie That touching my selfe all seemes done to thee My selfe I embrace and mine owne hands I kisse And amorously thanke my selfe for this Me in my glasse I call thee But alas When I would kisse teares dimme mine eyes and glasse O cure this loving madnesse and restore Me to mee shee my halfe my all my more So may thy cheekes red outweare scarlet dye And their white whitenesse of the Galaxy So may thy mighty amazing beauty move Envy ' in all women and in all men love And so be change and sicknesse farre from thee As thou by comming neere keep'st them from me The Annuntiation and Passion TAmely fraile body'abstaine to day to day My soule eates twice Christ hither and away She sees him man so like God made in this That of them both a circle embleme is Whose first and last concurre this doubtfull day Of feast or fast Christ came and went away Shee sees him nothing twice at once who'is all Shee sees a Cedar plant it selfe and fall Her Maker put to making and the head Of life at once not yet alive yet dead She sees at once the virgin mother stay Reclus'd at home Publique at Golgotha Sad and rejoyc'd shee 's seen at once and seen At almost fiftie and at scarce fifteene At once a Sonne is promis'd her and gone Gabriell gives Christ to her He her to John Not fully a mother Shee 's in Orbitie At once receiver and the legacie All this and all betweene this day hath showne Th' Abridgement of Christs story which makes one As in plaine Maps the furthest West is East Of the'Angels Ave ' and Consummatum est How well the Church Gods Court of faculties Deales in some times and seldome joyning these As by the selfe-fix'd Pole wee never doe Direct our course but the next starre thereto Which showes where the'other is and which we say Because it strayes not farre doth never stray So God by his Church neerest to him wee know And stand firme if wee by her motion goe His Spirit as his fiery Pillar doth Leade and his Church as cloud to one end both This Church by letting those daies joyne hath shown Death and conception in mankinde is one Or 't was in him the same humility That he would be a man and leave to be Or as creation he hath made as God With the last judgement but one period His imitating Spouse would joyne in one Manhoods extremes He shall come he is gone Or as though one blood drop which thence did fall Accepted would have serv'd he yet shed all So though the least of his paines deeds or words Would busie a life she all this day affords This treasure then in grosse my Soule uplay And in my life retaile it every day Goodfriday 1613. Riding Westward LEt mans Soule be a Spheare and then in this The intelligence that moves devotion is And as the other Spheares by being growne Subject to forraigne motion lose their owne And being by others hurried every day Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey Pleasure or businesse so our Soules admit For their first mover and are whirld by it Hence is 't that I am carryed towards the West This day whē my Soules forme bends toward the East There I should see a Sunne by rising set And by that setting endlesse day beget But that Christ on this Crosse did rise and fall Sinne had eternally benighted all Yet dare I'almost be glad I do not see That spectacle of too much weight for mee Who sees Gods face that is selfe life must dye What a death were it then to see God dye It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke It made his footstoole crack and the Sunne winke Could I behold those hands which span the Poles And tune all spheares at once peirc'd with those holes Could I behold that endlesse height which is Zenith to us and our Antipodes Humbled below us or that blood which is The seat of all our Soules if not of his Made durt of dust or that flesh which was worne By God for his apparell rag'd and torne If on these things I durst not looke durst I Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye Who was Gods partner here and furnish'd thus Halfe of that Sacrifice which ransom'd us Though these things as I ride be from mine eye They' are present yet unto my memory For that looks towards them thou look'st towards mee O Saviour as thou hang'st upon the tree I turne my backe to thee but to receive Corrections till thy mercies bid thee leave O thinke mee worth thine anger punish mee Burne off my rusts and my deformity Restore thine Image so much by thy grace That thou may'st know mee and I 'll turne my face THE LITANIE I. The FATHER FAther of Heaven and him by whom It and us for it and all else for us Thou madest and govern'st ever come And re-create mee now growne ruinous My heart is by dejection clay And by selfe-murder red From this red earth O Father purge away All vicious tinctures that new fashioned I may rise up from death before I 'am dead II. The SONNE O Sonne of God who seeing two things Sinne and death crept in which were never made By bearing one tryed'st with what stings The other could thine heritage invade O be thou nail'd unto my heart And crucified againe Part not from it though it from thee would part But let it be by applying so thy paine Drown'd in thy blood and in thy passion slaine III. The HOLY GHOST O Holy Ghost whose temple I Am but of mudde walls and condensed dust And being sacrilegiously Halfe wasted with youths fires of pride and lust Must with new stormes be weatherbeat Double in my heart thy flame Which let devout sad teares intend and let Though this glasse lanthorne flesh do suffer maime Fire Sacrifice Priest Altar be the same IV. The TRINITY O Blessed glorious Trinity Bones to Philosophy but milke to faith Which as wise serpents diversly Most slipperinesse yet most entanglings hath As you distinguish'd undistinct By power love knowledge bee Give mee a such selfe different instinct Of these let all mee elemented bee Of power to love to know you unnumbred three V. The Virgin MARY For that faire blessed Mother-maid Whose flesh redeem'd us That she-Cherubin Which unlock'd Paradise and made One claime for innocence and disseiz'd sinne Whose wombe was a strange heav'n for there God cloath'd himselfe and grew Our zealous thankes wee poure As her deeds were Our helpes so are her prayers nor can she sue In vaine who hath such titles unto you VI. The Angels And since this life our nonage is And wee in
And makes me end where I begunne The good-morrow I Wonder by my troth what thou and I Did till we lov'd were we not wean'd till then But suck'd on countrey pleasures childishly Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den T' was so But this all pleasures fancies bee If ever any beauty I did see Which I desir'd and got t' was but a dreame of thee And now good morrow to our waking soules Which watch not one another out of feare For love all love of other sights controules And makes one little roome an every where Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone Let Maps to other worlds on worlds have showne Let us possesse one world each hath one and is one My face in thine eye thine in mine appeares And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest Where can we finde two better hemispheares Without sharpe North without declining West What ever dyes was not mixt equally If our two loves be one or thou and I Love so alike that none doe slacken none can die Song Goe and catche a falling starre Get with child a mandrake roote Tell me where all past yeares are Or who cleft the Divels foot Teach me to heare Mermaides singing Or to keep off envies stinging And finde What winde Serves to advance an honest minde If thou beest borne to strange sights Things invisible to see Ride ten thousand daies and nights Till age snow white haires on thee Thou when thou retorn'st wilt tell mee All strange wonders that befell thee And sweare No where Lives a woman true and faire If thou findst one let mee know Such a Pilgrimage were sweet Yet doe not I would not goe Though at next doore wee might meet Though shee were true when you met her And last till you write your letter Yet shee Will bee False ere I come to two or three Womans constancy NOw thou hast lov'd me one whole day To morrow when thou leav'st what wilt thou say Wilt thou then Antedate some new made vow Or say that now We are not just those persons which we were Or that oathes made in reverentiall feare Of Love and his wrath any may forsweare Or as true deaths true maryages untie So lovers contracts images of those Binde but till sleep deaths image them unloose Or your owne end to Justifie For having purpos'd change and falsehood you Can have no way but falsehood to be true Vaine lunatique against these scapes I could Dispute and conquer if I would Which I abstaine to doe For by to morrow I may thinke so too I Have done one braver thing Then all the worthies did And yet a braver thence doth spring Which is to keepe that hid It were but madnes now t' impart The skill of specular stone When he which can have learn'd the art To cut it can finde none So if I now should utter this Others because no more Such stuffe to worke upon there is Would love but as before But he who lovelinesse within Hath found all outward loathes For he who colour loves and skinne Loves but their oldest clothes If as I have you also doe Vertue ' attir'd in woman see And dare love that and say so too And forget the Hee and Shee And if this love though placed so From prophane men you hide Which will no faith on this bestow Or if they doe deride Then you have done a braver thing Then all the Worthies did And a braver thence will spring Which is to keepe that hid The Sunne Rising BUsie old foole unruly Sunne Why dost thou thus Through windowes and through curtaines call on us Must to thy motions lovers seasons run Sawcy pedantique wretch goe chide Late schoole boyes and sowre prentices Goe tell Court-huntsmen that the King will ride Call countrey ants to harvest offices Love all alike no season knowes nor clyme Nor houres dayes moneths which are the rags of time Thy beames so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou thinke I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke But that I would not lose her sight so long If her eyes have not blinded thine Looke and to morrow late tell mee Whether both the'India's of spice and Myne Be where thou leftst them or lie here with mee Aske for those Kings whom thou saw'st yesterday And thou shalt heare All here in one bed lay She 'is all States and all Princes I Nothing else is Princes doe but play us compar'd to this All honor's mimique All wealth alchimie Thou sunne art halfe as happy'as wee In that the world 's contracted thus Thine age askes ease and since thy duties bee To warme the world that 's done in warming us Shine here to us and thou art every where This bed thy center is these walls thy spheare The Indifferent I Can love both faire and browne Her whom abundance melts and her whom want betraies Her who loves lonenesse best and her who maskes and plaies Her whō the country form'd whō the town Her who beleeves and her who tries Her who still weepes with spungie eyes And her who is dry corke and never cries I can love her and her and you and you I can love any so she be not true Will no other vice content you Wil it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers Or have you all old vices spent and now would finde out others Or doth a feare that men are true torment you Oh we are not be not you so Let mee and doe you twenty know Rob mee but binde me not and let me goe Must I who came to travaile thorow you Grow your fixt subject because you are true Venus heard me sigh this song And by Loves sweetest Part Variety she swore She heard not this till now and that it should be so no more She went examin'd and return'd ere long And said alas Some two or three Poore Heretiques in love there bee Which thinke to stablish dangerous constancie But I have told them since you will be true You shall be true to them who'are false to you Loves Vsury FOr every houre that thou wilt spare mee now I will allow Usurious God of Love twenty to thee When with my browne my gray haires equall bee Till then Love let my body raigne and let Mee travell sojourne snatch plot have forget Resume my last yeares relict thinke that yet We'had never met Let mee thinke any rivalls letter mine And at next nine Keepe midnights promise mistake by the way The maid and tell the Lady of that delay Onely let mee love none no not the sport From country grasse to comfitures of Court Or cities quelque choses let report My minde transport This bargaine 's good if when I 'am old I bee Inflam'd by thee If thine owne honour or my shame or paine Thou cover most at that age thou shalt gaine Doe thy will then then subject and degree And fruit of love Love I submit to thee Spare mee till then I 'll beare it though she bee One that loves
mee The Canonization FOr Godsake hold your tongue and let me love Or chide my palsie or my gout My five gray haires or ruin'd fortune flout With wealth your state your minde with Arts improve Take you a course get you a place Observe his honour or his grace Or the Kings reall or his stamped face Contemplate what you will approve So you will let me love Alas alas who 's injur'd by my love What merchants ships have my sighs drown'd Who saies my teares have overflow'd his ground When did my colds a forward spring remove When did the heats which my veines fill Adde one more to the plaguie Bill Soldiers finde warres and Lawyers finde out still Litigious men which quarrels move Though she and I do love Call us what you will wee are made such by love Call her one mee another flye We' are Tapers too and at our owne cost die And wee in us finde the'Eagle and the dove The Phoenix ridle hath more wit By us we two being one are it So to one neutrall thing both sexes fit Wee dye and rise the same and prove Mysterious by this love Wee can dye by it if not live by love And if unfit for tombes and hearse Our legends bee it will be fit for verse And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove We 'll build in sonnets pretty roomes As well a well wrought urne becomes The greatest ashes as halfe-acre tombes And by these hymnes all shall approve Us Canoniz'd for Love And thus invoke us You whom reverend love Made one anothers hermitage You to whom love was peace that now is rage Who did the whole worlds soule contract drove Into the glasses of your eyes So made such mirrors and such spies That they did all to you epitomize Countries Townes Courts Beg frow above A patterne of our love The triple Foole. I am two fooles I know For loving and for saying so In whining Poëtry But where 's that wise man that would not be I If she would not deny Then as th' earths inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea waters fretfull salt away I thought if I could draw my paines Through Rimes vexation I should them allay Griefe brought to numbers cannot be so fierce For he tames it that fetters it in verse But when I have done so Some man his art and voice to show Doth Set and sing my paine And by delighting many frees againe Griefe which verse did restraine To Love and Griefe tribute of Verse belongs But not of such as pleases when'tis read Both are increased by such songs For both their triumphs so are published And I which was two fooles do so grow three Who are a little wise the best fooles bee Lovers infinitenesse IF yet I have not all thy love Deare I shall never have it all I cannot breath one other sigh to move Nor can intreat one other teare to fall And all my treasure which should purchase thee Sighs teares and oathes and letters I have spent Yet no more can be due to mee Then at the bargaine made was ment If then thy gift of love were partiall That some to mee some should to others fall Deare I shall never have Thee All. Or if then thou gavest mee all All was but All which thou hadst then But if in thy heart since there be or shall New love created bee by other men Which have their stocks intire and can in teares In sighs in oathes and letters outbid mee This new love may beget new feares For this love was not vowed by thee And yet is was thy gift being generall The ground thy heart is mine what ever shall Grow there deare I should have it all Yet I would not have all yet Hee that hath all can have no more And since my love doth every day admit New growth thou shouldst have new rewards in store Thou canst not every day give me thy heart If thou canst give it then thou never gavest it Loves riddles are that though thy heart depart It stayes at home and thou with losing savest it But wee will have a way more liberall Then changing hearts to joyne them so wee shall Be one and one anothers All. Song SWeetest love I do not goe For wearinesse of thee Nor in hope the world can show A fitter Love for mee But since that I Must dye at last 't is best To use my selfe in jest Thus by fain'd deaths to dye Yesternight the Sunne went hence And yet is here to day He hath no desire nor sense Nor halfe so short a way Then feare not mee But beleeve that I shall make Speedier journeyes since I take More wings and spurres then hee O how feeble is mans power That if good fortune fall Cannot adde another houre Nor a lost houre recall But come bad chance And wee joyne to'it our strength And wee teach it art and length It selfe o'r us to'advance When thou sigh'st thou sigh'st not winde But sigh'st my soule away When thou weep'st unkindly kinde My lifes blood doth decay It cannot bee That thou lov'st mee as thou say'st If in thine my life thou waste Thou art the best of mee Let not thy divining heart Forethinke me any ill Destiny may take thy part And may thy feares fulfill But thinke that wee Are but turn'd aside to sleepe They who one another keepe Alive ne'r parted bee The Legacie VVHen I dyed last and Deare I dye As often as from thee I goe Though it be but an houre agoe And Lovers houres be full eternity I can remember yet that I Something did say and something did bestow Though I be dead which sent mee I should be Mine owne executor and Legacie I heard mee say Tell her anon That my selfe that 's you not I Did kill me and when I felt mee dye I bid mee send my heart when I was gone But I alas could there finde none When I had ripp'd me ' and search'd where hearts did lye It kill'd mee againe that I who still was true In life in my last Will should cozen you Yet I found something like a heart But colours it and corners had It was not good it was not bad It was intire to none and few had part As good as could be made by art It seem'd and therefore for our losses sad I meant to send this heart in stead of mine But oh no man could hold it for t was thine A Feaver OH doe not die for I shall hate All women so when thou art gone That thee I shall not celebrate When I remember thou wast one But yet thou canst not die I know To leave this world behinde is death But when thou from this world wilt goe The whole world vapors with thy breath Or if when thou the worlds soule goest It stay t is but thy carkasse then The fairest woman but thy ghost But corrupt wormes the worthyest men O wrangling schooles that search what fire Shall burne this world had none the wit Unto this knowledge
to aspire That this her feaver might be it And yet she cannot wast by this Nor long beare this torturing wrong For much corruption needfull is To fuell such a feaver long These burning fits but meteors bee Whose matter in thee is soone spent Thy beauty ' and all parts which are thee Are unchangeable firmament Yet t' was of my minde seising thee Though it in thee cannot persever For I had rather owner bee Of thee one houre then all else ever Aire and Angels Twice or thrice had I loved thee Before I knew thy face or name So in a voice so in a shapelesse flame Angells affect us oft and worship'd bee Still when to where thou wert I came Some lovely glorious nothing I did see But since my soule whose child love is Takes limmes of flesh and else could nothing doe More subtile then the parent is Love must not be but take a body too And therefore what thou wert and who I bid Love aske and now That it assume thy body I allow And fixe it selfe in thy lip eye and brow Whilst thus to ballast love I thought And so more steddily to have gone With wares which would sinke admiration I saw I had loves pinnace overfraught Ev'ry thy haire for love to worke upon Is much too much some fitter must be sought For nor in nothing nor in things Extreme and scattring bright can love inhere Then as an Angell face and wings Of aire not pure as it yet pure doth weare So thy love may be my loves spheare Just such disparitie As is twixt Aire and Angells puritie 'Twixt womens love and mens will ever bee Breake of day 'T Is true 't is day what though it be O wilt thou therefore rise from me Why should we rise because 't is light Did we lie downe because 't was night Love which in spight of darknesse brought us hether Should in despight of light keepe us together Light hath no tongue but is all eye If it could speake as well as spie This were the worst that it could say That being well I faine would stay And that I lov'd my heart and honor so That I would not from him that had them goe Must businesse thee from hence remove Oh that 's the worst disease of love The poore the foule the false love can Admit but not the busied man He which hath businesse and makes love doth doe Such wrong as when a maryed man doth wooe The Anniversarie ALL Kings and all their favorites All glory of honors beauties wits The Sun it selfe which makes times as they passe Is elder by a yeare now then it was When thou and I first one another saw All other things to their destruction draw Only our love hath no decay This no to morrow hath nor yesterday Running it never runs from us away But truly keepes his first last everlasting day Two graves must hide thine and my coarse If one might death were no divorce Alas as well as other Princes wee Who Prince enough in one another bee Must leave at last in death these eyes and eares Oft fed with true oathes and with sweet salt teares But soules where nothing dwells but love All other thoughts being inmates then shall prove This or a love increased there above When bodies to their graves soules from their graves remove And then wee shall be throughly blest But now no more then all the rest Here upon earth we' are Kings and none but wee Can be such Kings nor of such subjects bee Who is so safe as wee where none can doe Treason to us except one of us two True and false feares let us refraine Let us love nobly and live and adde againe Yeares and yeares unto yeares till we attaine To write threescore this is the second of our raigne A Valediction of my name in the window I. MY name engrav'd herein Doth contribute my firmnesse to this glasse Which ever since that charme hath beene As hard as that which grav'd it was Thine eye will give it price enough to mock The diamonds of either rock II. 'T is much that Glasse should bee As all confessing and through-shine as I 'T is more that it shewes thee to thee And cleare reflects thee to thine eye But all such rules loves magique can undoe Here you see mee and I am you III. As no one point nor dash Which are but accessaries to this name The showers and tempests can outwash So shall all times finde mee the same You this intirenesse better may fulfill Who have the patterne with you still IIII. Or if too hard and deepe This learning be for a scratch'd name to teach It as a given deaths head keepe Lovers mortalitie to preach Or thinke this ragged bony name to bee My ruinous Anatomie V. Then as all my soules bee Emparadis'd in you in whom alone I understand and grow and see The rafters of my body bone Being still with you the Muscle Sinew and Veine Which tile this house will come againe VI. Till my returne repaire And recompact my scattered body so As all the vertuous powers which are Fix'd in the starres are said to flow Into such characters as graved bee When these starres have supremacie VII So since this name was cut When love and griefe their exaltation had No doore'gainst this names influence shut As much more loving as more sad 'T will make thee and thou shouldst till I returne Since I die daily daily mourne VIII When thy inconsiderate hand Flings ope this casement with my trembling name To looke on one whose wit or land New battry to thy heart may frame Then thinke this name alive and that thou thus In it offendst my Genius IX And when thy melted maid Corrupted by thy Lover's gold and page His letter at thy pillow'hath laid Disputed it and tam'd thy rage And thou begin'st to thaw towards him for this May my name step in and hide his X. And if this treason goe To an overt act and that thou write againe In superscribing this name flow Into thy fancy from the pane So in forgetting thou remembrest right And unaware to mee shalt write XI But glasse and lines must bee No meanes our firme substantiall love to keepe Neere death inflicts this lethargie And this I murmure in my sleepe Impute this idle talke to that I goe For dying men talke often so Twicknam garden BLasted with sighs and surrounded with teares Hither I come to seeke the spring And at mine eyes and at mine eares Receive such balmes as else cure every thing But O selfe traytor I do bring The spider love which transubstantiates all And can convert Manna to gall And that this place may thoroughly be thought True Paradise I have the serpent brought 'T were wholsomer for mee that winter did Benight the glory of this place And that a grave frost did forbid These trees to laugh and mocke mee to my face But that I may not this disgrace Indure nor yet leave loving
Love let mee Some senslesse peece of this place bee Make me a mandrake so I may grow here Or a stone fountaine weeping out my yeare Hither with christall vyals lovers come And take my teares which are loves wine And try your mistresse Teares at home For all are false that tast not just like mine Alas hearts do not in eyes shine Nor can you more judge womens thoughts by teares Then by her shadow what she weares O perverse sexe where none is true but shee Who 's therefore true because her truth kills mee Valediction to his booke I 'Ll tell thee now deare Love what thou shalt doe To anger destiny as she doth us How I shall stay though she Esloygne me thus And how posterity shall know it too How thine may out-endure Sybills glory and obscure Her who from Pindar could allure And her through whose helpe Lucan is not lame And her whose booke they say Homer did finde and name Study our manuscripts those Myriades Of letters which have past twixt thee and mee Thence write our Annals and in them will bee To all whom loves subliming fire invades Rule and example found There the faith of any ground No schismatique will dare to wound That sees how Love this grace to us affords To make to keep to use to be these his Records This Booke as long-liv'd as the elements Or as the worlds forme this all-graved tome In cypher writ or new made Idiome Wee for loves clergie only'are instruments When this booke is made thus Should againe the ravenous Vandals and the Goths invade us Learning were safe in this our Universe Schooles might learne Sciences Spheares Musick Angels Verse Here Loves Divines since all Divinity Is love or wonder may finde all they seeke Whether abstract spirituall love they like Their Soules exhal'd with what they do not see Or loth so to amuze Faiths infirmitie they chuse Something which they may see and use For though minde be the heaven where love doth sit Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it Here more then in their bookes may Lawyers finde Both by what titles Mistresses are ours And how prerogative these states devours Transferr'd from Love himselfe to womankinde Who though from heart and eyes They exact great subsidies Forsake him who on them relies And for the cause honour or conscience give Chimeraes vaine as they or their prerogative Here Statesmen or of them they which can reade May of their occupation finde the grounds Love and their art alike it deadly wounds If to consider what 't is one proceed In both they doe excell Who the present governe well Whose weaknesse none doth or dares tell In this thy booke such will there something see As in the Bible some can finde out Alchimy Thus vent thy thoughts abroad I 'll studie thee As he removes farre off that great heights takes How great love is presence best tryall makes But absence tryes how long this love will bee To take a latitude Sun or starres are fitliest view'd At their brightest but to conclude Of longitudes what other way have wee But to marke when and where the darke eclipses bee GOod wee must love and must hate ill For ill is ill and good good still But these are things indifferent Which wee may neither hate nor love But one and then another prove As wee shall finde our fancy bent If then at first wise Nature had Made women either good or bad Then some wee might hate and some chuse But since shee did them so create That we may neither love nor hate Onely this rest All all may use If they were good it would be seene Good is as visible as greene And to all eyes it selfe betrayes If they were bad they could not last Bad doth it selfe and others wast So they deserve nor blame nor praise But they are ours as fruits are ours He that but tasts he that devours And he that leaves all doth as well Chang'd loves are but chang'd sorts of meat And when hee hath the kernell eate Who doth not fling away the shell Loves growth I Scarce beleeve my love to be so pure As I had thought it was Because it doth endure Vicissitude and season as the grasse Me thinkes I lyed all winter when I swore My love was infinite if spring make'it more But if this medicine love which cures all sorrow With more not onely bee no quintessence But mixt of all stuffes paining soule or sense And of the Sunne his working vigour borrow Love 's not so pure and abstract as they use To say which have no Mistresse but their Muse But as all else being elemented too Love sometimes would contemplate sometimes do And yet no greater but more eminent Love by the spring is growne As in the firmament Starres by the Sunne are not inlarg'd but showne Gentle love deeds as blossomes on a bough From loves awakened root do bud out now If as in water stir'd more circles bee Produc'd by one love such additions take Those like so many spheares but one heaven make For they are all concentrique unto thee And though each spring doe adde to love new heate As princes doe in times of action get New taxes and remit them not in peace No winter shall abate the springs encrease Loves exchange LOve any devill else but you Would for a given Soule give something too At Court your fellowes every day Give th' art of Riming Huntsmanship or play For them which were their owne before Onely I have nothing which gave more But am alas by being lowly lower I aske no dispensation now To falsifie a teare or sigh or vow I do not sue from thee to draw A non obstante on natures law These are prerogatives they inhere In thee and thine none should forsweare Except that hee Loves minion were Give mee thy weaknesse make mee blinde Both wayes as thou and thine in eies and minde Love let me never know that this Is love or that love childish is Let me not know that others know That she knowes my paines least that so A tender shame make me mine owne new woe If thou give nothing yet thou' art just Because I would not thy first motions trust Small townes which stand stiffe till great shot Enforce them by warres law condition not Such in loves warfare is my case I may not article for grace Having put love at last to shew this face This face by which he could commnd And change the Idolatrie of any land This face which wheresoe'r it comes Can call vow'd men from cloisters dead from tombes And melt both Poles at once and store Deserts with cities and make more Mynes in the earth then Quarries were before For this love is enrag'd with mee Yet kills not if I must example bee To future Rebells If th' unborne Must learne by my being cut up and torne Kill and dissect me Love for this Torture against thine owne end is Rack't carcasses make ill Anatomies SOme man unworthy
to be possessor Of old or new love himselfe being false or weake Thought his paine and shame would be lesser If on womankind he might his anger wreake And thence a law did grow One might but one man know But are other creatures so Are Sunne Moone or Starres by law forbidden To smile where they list or lend away their light Are birds divorc'd or are they chidden If they leave their mate or lie abroad a night Beasts doe no joyntures lose Though they new lovers choose But we are made worse then those Who e'r rigg'd faire ship to lie in harbors And not to seeke new lands or not to deale withall Or built faire houses set trees and arbors Only to lock up or else to let them fall Good is not good unlesse A thousand it possesse But doth wast with greedinesse The Dreame DEare love for nothing lesse then thee Would I have broke this happy dreame It was a theame For reason much too strong for phantasie Therefore thou wakd'st me wisely yet My Dreame thou brok'st not but continued'st it Thou art so truth that thoughts of thee suffice To make dreames truths and fables histories Enter these armes for since thou thoughtst it best Not to dreame all my dreame let 's act the rest As lightning or a Tapers light Thine eyes and not thy noise wak'd mee Yet I thought thee For thou lovest truth an Angell at first sight But when I saw thou sawest my heart And knew'st my thoughts beyond an Angels art When thou knew'st what I dreamt whē thou knew'st whē Excesse of joy would wake me and cam'st then I must confesse it could not chuse but bee Prophane to thinke thee any thing but thee Comming and staying show'd thee thee But rising makes me doubt that now Thou art not thou That love is weake where feare 's as strong as hee 'T is not all spirit pure and brave If mixture it of Feare Shame Honor have Perchance as torches which must ready bee Men light and put out so thou deal'st with mee Thou cam'st to kindle goest to come Then I Will dreame that hope againe but else would die A Valediction of weeping LEt me powre forth My teares before thy face whil'st I stay here For thy face coines them and thy stampe they beare And by this Mintage they are something worth For thus they bee Pregnant of thee Fruits of much griefe they are emblemes of more When a teare falls that thou falst which it bore So thou and I are nothing then when on a divers shore On a round ball A workeman that hath copies by can lay An Europe Afrique and an Asia And quickly make that which was nothing All So doth each teare Which thee doth weare A globe yea world by that impression grow Till thy teares mixt with mine doe overflow This world by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so O more then Moone Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare Weepe me not dead in thine armes but forbeare To teach the sea what it may doe too soone Let not the winde Example finde To doe me more harme then it purposeth Since thou and I sigh one anothers breath Who e'r sighes most is cruellest and hasts the others death Loves Alchymie SOme that have deeper digg'd loves Myne then I Say where his centrique happinesse doth lie I have lov'd and got and told But should I love get tell till I were old I should not finde that hidden mysterie Oh 't is imposture all And as no chymique yet th'Elixar got But glorifies his pregnant pot If by the way to him befall Some odoriferous thing or medicinall So lovers dreame a rich and long delight But get a winter-seeming summers night Our ease our thrift our honor and our day Shall we for this vaine Bubles shadow pay Ends love in this that my man Can be as happy'as I can If he can Endure the short scorne of a Bridegroomes play That loving wretch that sweares 'T is not the bodies marry but the mindes Which he in her Angelique findes Would sweare as justly that he heares In that dayes rude hoarse minstralsey the spheares Hope not for minde in women at their best Sweetnesse and wit they' are but Mummy possest The Flea MArke but this flea and marke in this How little that which thou deny'st me is It suck'd me first and now sucks thee And in this flea our two bloods mingled bee Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sinne nor shame nor losse of maidenhead Yet this enjoyes before it wooe And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two And this alas is more then wee would doe Oh stay three lives in one flea spare Where wee almost yea more then maryed are This flea is you and I and this Our mariage bed and mariage temple is Though parents grudge and you w' are met And cloysterd in these living walls of Jet Though use make you apt to kill mee Let not to that selfe murder added bee And sacrilege three sinnes in killing three Cruell and sodaine hast thou since Purpled thy naile in blood of innocence Wherein could this flea guilty bee Except in that drop which it suckt from thee Yet thou triumph'st and saist that thou Find'st not thy selfe nor mee the weaker now 'T is true then learne how false feares bee Just so much honor when thou yeeld'st to mee Will wast as this flea's death tooke life from thee The Curse WHo ever guesses thinks or dreames he knowes Who is my mistris wither by this curse His only and only his purse May some dull heart to love dispose And shee yeeld then to all that are his foes May he be scorn'd by one whom all else scorne Forsweare to others what to her he' hath sworne With feare of missing shame of getting torne Madnesse his sorrow gout his cramp may hee Make by but thinking who hath made him such And may he feele no touch Of conscience but of fame and bee Anguish'd not that 't was sinne but that 't was shee In early and long scarcenesse may he rot For land which had been his if he had not Himselfe incestuously an heire begot May he dreame Treason and beleeve that hee Meant to performe it and confesse and die And no record tell why His sonnes which none of his may bee Inherite nothing but his infamie Or may he so long Parasites have fed That he would faine be theirs whom he hath bred And at the last be circumcis'd for bread The venom of all stepdames gamsters gall What Tyrans and their subjects interwish What Plants Myne Beasts Foule Fish Can contribute all ill which all Prophets or Poets spake And all which shall Be annex'd in schedules unto this by mee Fall on that man For if it be a shee Nature before hand hath out-cursed mee AN ANATOMIE OF THE WORLD Wherein By occasion of the untimely death of Mistris ELIZABETH DRVRY the frailty and the decay of this whole World is represented The first Anniversary
but whil'st you thinke you bee Constant you' are hourely in inconstancie Honour may have pretence unto our love Because that God did live so long above Without this Honour and then lov'd it so That he at last made creatures to bestow Honour on him not that he needed it But that to his hands man might grow more fit But since all Honours from inferiours flow For they doe give it Princes doe but shew Whom they would have so honor'd and that this On such opinions and capacities Is built as rise and fall to more and lesse Alas 't is but a casuall happinesse Hath ever any man to'himselfe assign'd This or that happinesse to'arrest his minde But that another man which takes a worse Thinks him a foole for having tane that course They who did labour Babels tower to'erect Might have considered that for that effect All this whole solid Earth could not allow Nor furnish forth materialls enough And that his Center to raise such a place Was farre too little to have beene the Base No more affords this world foundation To erect true joy were all the meanes in one But as the Heathen made them severall gods Of all Gods benefits and all his rods For as the Wine and Corne and Onions are Gods unto them so Agues bee and warre And as by changing that whole precious Gold To such small Copper coynes they lost the old And lost their only God who ever must Be sought alone and not in such a thrust So much mankinde true happinesse mistakes No Joy enjoyes that man that many makes Then Soule to thy first pitch worke up againe Know that all lines which circles doe containe For once that they the Center touch doe touch Twice the circumference and be thou such Double on heaven thy thoughts on earth emploid All will not serve Only who have enjoy'd The sight of God in fulnesse can thinke it For it is both the object and the wit This is essentiall joy where neither hee Can suffer diminution nor wee 'T is such a full and such a filling good Had th'Angels once look'd on him they had stood To fill the place of one of them or more Shee whom wee celebrate is gone before She who had here so much essentiall joy As no chance could distract much lesse destroy Who with Gods presence was acquainted so Hearing and speaking to him as to know His face in any naturall Stone or Tree Better then when in Images they bee Who kept by diligent devotion Gods Image in such reparation Within her heart that what decay was growne Was her first Parents fault and not her owne Who being solicited to any act Still heard God pleading his safe precontract Who by a faithfull confidence was here Betroth'd to God and now is married there Whose twilights were more cleare then our mid-day Who dreamt devoutlier then most use to pray Who being here fil'd with grace yet strove to bee Both where more grace and more capacitie At once is given she to Heaven is gone Who made this world in some proportion A heaven and here became unto us all Joy as our joyes admit essentiall But could this low world joyes essentiall touch Heavens accidentall joyes would passe them much How poore and lame must then our casuall bee If thy Prince will his subjects to call thee My Lord and this doe swell thee thou art than By being greater growne to bee lesse Man When no Physitian of redresse can speake A joyfull casuall violence may breake A dangerous Apostem in thy breast And whil'st thou joyest in this the dangerous rest The bag may rise up and so strangle thee What e'r was casuall may ever bee What should the nature change Or make the same Certaine which was but casuall when it came All casuall joy doth loud and plainly say Only by comming that it can away Only in Heaven joyes strength is never spent And accidentall things are permanent Joy of a soules arrivall ne'r decaies For that soule ever joyes and ever staies Joy that their last great Consummation Approaches in the resurrection When earthly bodies more celestiall Shall be then Angels were for they could fall This kinde of joy doth every day admit Degrees of growth but none of losing it In this fresh joy 't is no small part that shee Shee in whose goodnesse he that names degree Doth injure her 'T is losse to be cal'd best There where the stuffe is not such as the rest Shee who left such a bodie as even shee Only in Heaven could learne how it can bee Made better for shee rather was two soules Or like to full on both sides written Rols Where eyes might reade upon the outward skin As strong Records for God as mindes within Shee who by making full perfection grow Peeces a Circle and still keepes it so Long'd for and longing for it to heaven is gone Where shee receives and gives addition Here in a place where mis-devotion frames A thousand Prayers to Saints whose very names The anciēt Church knew not Heaven knows not yet And where what lawes of Poetry admit Lawes of Religion have at least the same Immortall Maide I might invoke thy name Could any Saint provoke that appetite Thou here should'st make me a french convertite But thou would'st not nor would'st thou be content To take this for my second yeares true Rent Did this Coine beare any other stampe then his That gave thee power to doe me to say this Since his will is that to posteritie Thou should'st for life and death a patterne bee And that the world should notice have of this The purpose and th' authoritie is his Thou art the Proclamation and I am The Trumpet at whose voyce the people came The Extasie WHere like a pillow on a bed A Pregnant banke swel'd up to rest The violets reclining head Sat we two one anothers best Our hands were firmely cimented With a fast balme which thence did spring Our eye-beames twisted and did thred Our eyes upon one double string So to'entergraft our hands as yet Was all the meanes to make us one And pictures in our eyes to get Was all our propagation As 'twixt two equall Armies Fate Suspends uncertaine victorie Our soules which to advance their state Were gone out hung 'twixt her and mee And whil'st our soules negotiate there Wee like sepulchrall statues lay All day the same our postures were And wee said nothing all the day If any so by love refin'd That he soules language understood And by good love were growen all minde Within convenient distance stood He though he knowes not which soule spake Because both meant both spake the same Might thence a new concoction take And part farre purer then he came This Extasie doth unperplex We said and tell us what we love Wee see by this it was not sexe Wee see we saw not what did move But as all severall soules containe Mixture of things they know not what Love these mixt soules doth
mixe againe And makes both one each this and that A single violet transplant The strength the colour and the size All which before was poore and scant Redoubles still and multiplies When love with one another so Interanimates two soules That abler soule which thence doth flow Defects of lonelinesse controules Wee then who are this new soule know Of what we are compos'd and made For th'Atomies of which we grow Are soules whom no change can invade But O alas so long so farre Our bodies why doe wee forbeare They are ours though not wee Wee are The intelligences they the spheares We owe them thankes because they thus Did us to us at first convay Yeelded their senses force to us Nor are drosse to us but allay On man heavens influence workes not so But that it first imprints the ayre For soule into the soule may flow Though it to body first repaire As our blood labours to beget Spirits as like soules as it can Because such fingers need to knit That subtile knot which makes us man So must pure lovers soules descend T'affections and to faculties Which sense may reach and apprehend Else a great Prince in prison lies To'our bodies turne wee then that so Weake men on love reveal'd may looke Loves mysteries in soules doe grow But yet the body is his booke And if some lover such as wee Have heard this dialogue of one Let him still marke us he shall see Small change when we' are to bodies gone Loves Deitie I Long to talke with some old lovers ghost Who dyed before the god of Love was borne I cannot thinke that hee who then lov'd most Sunke so low as to love one which did scorne But since this god produc'd a destinie And that vice-nature custome lets it be I must love her that loves not mee Sure they which made him god meant not so much Nor he in his young god head practis'd it But when an even flame two hearts did touch His office was indulgently to fit Actives to passives Correspondencie Only his subject was It cannot bee Love till I love her that loves mee But every moderne god will now extend His vast prerogative as far as Jove To rage to lust to 〈◊〉 to commend All is the purlewe of the God of Love Oh were wee wak'ned by this Tyrannie To ungod this child againe it could not beo I should love her who loves not mee Rebell and Atheist too why murmure I As though I felt the worst that love could doe Love may make me leave loving or might trie A deeper plague to make her love mee too Which since she loves before I 'am loth to see Falshood is worse then hate and that must bee If shee whom I love should love mee Loves diet TO what a combersome unwieldinesse And burdenous corpulence my love had growne But that I did to make it lesse And keepe it in proportion Give it a diet made it feed upon That which love worst endures discretion 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 mistresse heart And thought to feast on that I let him see 'T was neither very sound nor meant to mee If he wroung from mee'a teare I brin'd it so With scorne or shame that him it nourish'd not If he suck'd hers I let him know 'T was not a teare which hee had got His drinke was counterfeit as was his meat For eyes which rowle towards all weepe not but sweat What ever he would dictate I writ that But burnt my letters When she writ to me And that that favour made him fat I said if any title bee Convey'd by this Ah what doth it availe To be the fortieth name in an entaile Thus I redeem'd my buzard love to flye At what and when and how and where I chuse Now negligent of sports I lye And now as other Fawkners use I spring a mistresse sweare write sigh and weepe And the game kill'd or lost goe talke and sleepe The Will BEfore I sigh my last gaspe let me breath Great love some Legacies Here I bequeath Mine eyes to Argus if mine eyes can see If they be blinde then Love I give them thee My tongue to Fame to'Embassadours mine eares To women or the sea my teares Thou Love hast taught mee heretofore By making mee serve her who 'had twenty more That I should give to none but such as had too much before My constancie I to the planets give My truth to them who at the Court doe live Mine ingenuity and opennesse To Jesuites to Buffones my pensivenesse My silence to'any who abroad hath beene My mony to a Capuchin Thou Love taught'st me by appointing mee To love there where no love receiv'd can be Onely to give to such as have an incapacitie My faith I give to Roman Catholiques All my good works unto the Schismaticks Of Amsterdam my best civility And Courtship to an Universitie My modesty I give to souldiers bare My patience let gamesters share Thou Love taughtst mee by making mee Love her that holds my love disparity Onely to give to those that count my gifts indignity I give my reputation to those Which were my friends Mine industrie to foes To Schoolemen I bequeath my doubtfulnesse My sicknesse to Physitians or excesse To Nature all that I in Ryme have writ And to my company my wit Thou love by making mee adore Her who begot this love in mee before Taughtst me to make as though I gave when I did but restore To him for whom the passing bell next tolls I give my physick bookes my writen rowles Of Morall counsels I to Bedlam give My brazen medals unto them which live In want of bread to them which passe among All forrainers mine English tongue Thou Love by making mee love one Who thinkes her friendship a fit portion For yonger lovers dost my gifts thus disproportion Therefore I 'll give no more But I 'll undoe The world by dying because love dies too Then all your beauties will bee no more worth Then gold in Mines where none doth draw it forth And all your graces no more use shall have Then a Sun dyall in a grave Thou Love taughtst mee by making mee Love her who doth neglect both mee and thee To'invent and practise this one way to'annihilate all three The Funerall WHo ever comes to shroud me do not harme Nor question much That subtile wreath of haire which crowne my arme The mystery the signe you must not touch For'tis my outward Soule Viceroy to that which unto heaven being gone Will leave this to controule And keepe these limbes her Provinces from dissolution For if the sinewie thread my braine le ts fall Through every part Can tye those parts and make mee one of all Those haires which upward grew and strength and art Have from a better braine Can better do' it except she meant that I By this should
know my pain As prisoners then are manacled when they' are condem'nd to die What ere shee meant by'it bury it by me For since I am Loves martyr it might breed idolatrie If into others hands these reliques came As 't was humility To afford to it all that a Soule can doe So 't is some bravery That since you would have none of mee I bury some of you The Blossome LIttle think'st thou poore flower Whom I have watch'd sixe or seaven dayes And seene thy birth and seene what every houre 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 finde thee falne or not at all Little think'st thou poore heart That labours yet to nestle thee And think'st by hovering here to get a part In a forbidden or forbidding tree And hop'st her stiffenesse by long siege to bow Little think'st thou That thou to morrow ere that Sunne doth wake Must with this Sunne and mee a journey take But thou which lov'st to bee Subtile to plague thy selfe wilt say Alas if you must goe what 's that to mee Here lyes my businesse and here I will stay You goe to friends whose love and meanes present Various content To your eyes eares and tast and every part If then your body goe what need your heart Well then stay here but know When thou hast stayd and done thy most A naked thinking heart that makes no show Is to a woman but a kinde of Ghost How shall shee know my heart or having none Know thee for one Practise may make her know some other part But take my word shee doth not know a Heart Meet mee at London then Twenty dayes hence and thou shalt see Mee fresher and more fat by being with men Then if I had staid still with her and thee For Gods sake if you can be you so too I will give you There to another friend whom wee shall finde As glad to have my body as my minde The Primrose VPon this Primrose hill Where it Heav'n would distill A shoure of raine each severall drop might goe To his owne primrose and grow Manna so And where their forme and their infinitie Make a terrestriall Galaxie As the small starres doe in the skie I walke to finde a true Love and I see That 't is not a mere woman that is shee But must or more or lesse then woman bee Yet know I not which flower I wish a sixe or foure For should my true-true-Love lesse then woman bee She were scarce any thing and then should shee Be more then woman shee would get above All thought of sexe and thinke to move My heart to study her and not to love Both these were monsters Since there must reside Falshood in woman I could more abide She were by art then Nature falsify'd Live Primrose then and thrive With thy true number five And women whom this flower doth represent With this mysterious number be content Ten is the farthest number if halfe ten Belongs unto each woman then Each woman may take halfe us men Or if this will not serve their turne Since all Numbers are odde or even and they fall First into this five women may take us all The Relique WHen my grave is broke up againe Some second ghest to entertaine For graves have learn'd that woman-head To be to more then one a Bed And he that digs it spies A bracelet of bright haire about the bone Will he not let'us alone And thinke that there a loving couple lies Who thought that this device might be some way To make their soules at the last busie day Meet at this grave and make a little stay If this fall in a time or land Where mis-devotion doth command Then he that digges us up will bring Us to the Bishop and the King To make us Reliques then Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen and I A something else thereby All women shall adore us and some men And since at such time miracles are sought I would have that age by this paper taught What miracles wee harmelesse lovers wrought First we lov'd well and faithfully Yet knew not what wee lov'd nor why Difference of sex no more wee new Then our Guardian Angells doe Comming and going wee Perchance might kisse but not between those meales Our hands ne'r toucht the seales Which nature injur'd by late law sets free These miracles wee did but now alas All measure and all language I should passe Should I tell what a miracle shee was The Dampe WHen I am dead and Doctors know not why And my friends curiositie Will have me cut up to survay each part When they shall finde your Picture in my heart You thinke a sodaine dampe of love Will through all their senses move And worke on them as mee and so preferre Your murder to the name of Massacre Poore victories But if you dare be brave And pleasure in your conquest have First kill th'enormous Gyant your Disdaine And let th'enchantresse Honor next be slaine And like a Goth and Vandall rize Deface Records and Histories Of your owne arts and triumphs over men And without such advantage kill me then For I could muster up as well as you My Gyants and my Witches too Which are vast Constancy and Secretnesse But these I neyther looke for nor professe Kill mee as Woman let mee die As a meere man doe you but try Your passive valor and you shall finde than In that you'have odds enough of any man The Dissolution SHee'is dead And all which die To their first Elements resolve And wee were mutuall Elements to us And made of one another My body then doth hers involve And those things whereof I consist hereby In me abundant grow and burdenous And nourish not but smother My fire of Passion sighes of ayre Water of teares and earthly sad despaire Which my materialls bee But ne'r worne out by loves securitie Shee to my losse doth by her death repaire And I might live long wretched so But that my fire doth with my fuell grow Now as those Active Kings Whose foraine conquest treasure brings Receive more and spend more and soonest breake This which I am amaz'd that I can speake This death hath with my store My use encreas'd And so my soule more earnestly releas'd Will outstrip hers As bullets flowen before A latter bullet may o'rtake the pouder being more A Ieat King sent THou art not so black as my heart Nor halfe so brittle as her heart thou art What would'st thou say shall both our properties by thee bee spoke Nothing more endlesse nothing sooner broke Marriage rings are not of this stuffe Oh why should ought lesse precious or lesse tough Figure our loves Except in thy name thou have bid it say I 'am cheap nought but fashion fling me'away Yet stay with mee since thou art come Circle this fingers top which did'st her thombe Be
justly proud and gladly safe that thou dost dwell with me She that Oh broke her faith would soon breake thee Negative love I Never stoop'd so low as they Which on an eye cheeke lip can prey Seldome to them which soare no higher Then vertue or the minde to'admire For sense and understanding may Know what gives fuell to their fire My love though silly is more brave For may I misse when ere I crave If I know yet what I would have If that be simply perfectest Which can by no way be exprest But Negatives my love is so To All which all love I say no. If any who deciphers best What we know not our selves can know Let him teach mee that nothing This As yet my ease and comfort is Though I speed not I cannot misse The Prohibition TAke heed of loving mee At least remember I forbade it thee Not that I shall repaire my'unthrifty wast Of Breath and Blood upon thy sighes and teares By being to mee then that which thou wast But so great Joy our life at once outweares Then least thy love by my death frustrate bee If thou love mee take heed of loving mee Take heed of hating mee Or too much triumph in the Victorie Not that I shall be mine owne officer And hate with hate againe retaliate But thou wilt lose the stile of conquerour If I thy conquest perish by thy hate Then least my being nothing lessen thee If thou hate mee take heed of hating mee Yet love and hate mee too So these extreames shall ne'r their office doe Love mee that I may die the gentler way Hate mee because thy love is too great for mee Or let these two themselves not me decay So shall I live thy stay not triumph bee Lest thou thy love and hate and mee undoe To let mee live Oh love and hate mee too The Expiration SO so breake off this last'lamenting kisse Which sucks two soules and vapors Both away Turne thou ghost that way and let mee turne this And let our selves benight our happiest day Wee aske none leave to love nor will we owe Any so cheape a death as saying Goe Goe and if that word have not quite kil'd thee Ease mee with death by bidding mee goe too Oh if it have let my word worke on mee And a just office on a murderer doe Except it be too late to kill me so Being double dead going and bidding goe The Computation FOr the first twenty yeares since yesterday I scarce beleev'd thou could'st be gone away For forty more I fed on favours past And forty'on hopes that thou would'st they might last Teares drown'd one hundred and sighes blew out two A thousand I did neither thinke nor doe Or not divide all being one thought of you Or in a thousand more forgot that too Yet call not this long life But thinke that I Am by being dead Immortall Can ghosts die Elegie LAnguage thou art too narrow and too weake To ease us now great sorrow cannot speake If we could sigh out accents and weepe words Griefe weares and lessens that tears breath affords Sad hearts the lesse they seeme the more they are So guiltiest men stand mutest at the barre Not that they know not feele not their estate But extreme sense hath made them desperate Sorrow to whom we owe all that we bee Tyrant in the fift and greatest Monarchy Was 't that she did possesse all hearts before Thou hast kil'd her to make thy Empire more Knew'st thou some would that knew her not lament As in a deluge perish th' innocent Was 't not enough to have that palace wonne But thou must raze it too that was undone Had'st thou staid there and look'd out at her eyes All had ador'd thee that now from thee flies For they let out more light then they tooke in They told not when but did the day beginne She was too Saphirine and cleare to thee Clay flint and jeat now thy fit dwellings be Alas shee was too pure but not too weake Who e'r saw Christall Ordinance but would break And if wee be thy conquest by her fall Th' hast lost thy end for in her perish all Or if we live we live but to rebell They know her better now that knew her well If we should vapour out and pine and die Since shee first went that were not miserie Shee chang'd our world with hers now she is gone Mirth and prosperity is oppression For of all morall vertues she was all The Ethicks speake of vertues Cardinall Her soule was Paradise the Cherubin Set to keepe it was grace that kept out sinne Shee had no more then let in death for wee All reape consumption from one fruitfull tree God tooke her hence lest some of us should love Her like that plant him and his lawes above And when wee teares hee mercy shed in this To raise our mindes to heaven where now she is Who if her vertues would have let her stay Wee'had had a Saint have now a holiday Her heart was that strange bush where sacred fire Religion did not consume but'inspire Such piety so chast use of Gods day That what we turne to feast she turn'd to pray And did prefigure here in devout tast The rest of her high Sabaoth which shall last Angels did hand her up who next God dwell For she was of that order whence most fell Her body left with us lest some had said Shee could not die except they saw her dead For from lesse vertue and lesse beautiousnesse The Gentiles fram'd them Gods and Goddesses The ravenous earth that now woes her to be Earth too will be a Lemnia and the tree That wraps that christall in a wooden Tombe Shall be tooke up spruce fill'd with diamond And we her sad glad friends all beare a part Of griefe for all would waste a Stoicks heart Elegie to the Lady Bedford YOu that are she and you that 's double shee In her dead face halfe of your selfe shall see Shee was the other part for so they doe Which build them friendships become one of two So two that but themselves no third can fit Which were to be so when they were not yet Twinnes though their birth Cusco and Musco take As divers starres one Constellation make Pair'd like two eyes have equall motion so Both but one meanes to see one way to goe Had you dy'd first a carcasse shee had beene And wee your rich Tombe in her face had seene She like the Soule is gone and you here stay Not a live friend but thother halfe of clay And since you act that part As men say here Lies such a Prince when but one part is there And do all honour and devotion due Unto the whole so wee all reverence you For such a friendship who would not adore In you who are all what both was before Not all as if some perished by this But so as all in you contracted is As of this all though many parts decay The pure which
elemented them shall stay And though diffus'd and spread in infinite Shall recollect and in one All unite So madame as her Soule to heaven is fled Her flesh rests in the earth as in the bed Her vertues do as to their proper spheare Returne to dwell with you of whom they were As perfect motions are all circular So they to you their sea whence lesse streames are Shee was all spices you all metalls so In you two wee did both rich Indies know And as no fire nor rust can spend or waste One dramme of gold but what was first shall last Though it bee forc'd in water earth salt aire Expans'd in infinite none will impaire So to your selfe you may additions take But nothing can you lesse or changed make Seeke not in seeking new to seeme to doubt That you can can match her or not be without But let some faithfull booke in her roome be Yet but of Iudith no such booke as shee Elegie TO make the doubt cleare that no woman's true Was it my fate to prove it strong in you Thought I but one had breathed purest aire And must she needs be false because she 's faire Is it your beauties marke or of your youth Or your perfection not to study truth Or thinke you heaven is deafe or hath no eyes Or those it hath smile at your perjuries Are vowes so cheape with women or the matter Whereof they are made that they are writ in water And blowne away with winde Or doth their breath Both hot and cold at once make life and death Who could have thought so many accents sweet Form'd into words so many sighs should meete As from our hearts so many oathes and teares Sprinkled among all sweeter by our feares And the divine impression of stolne kisses That seal'd the rest should now prove empty blisses Did you draw bonds to forfet signe to breake Or must we reade you quite from what you speake And finde the truth out the wrong way or must Hee first desire you false would wish you just O I prophane though most of women be This kinde of beast my thought shall except thee My dearest Love though froward jealousie With circumstance might urge thy'inconstancie Sooner I 'll thinke the Sunne will cease to cheare The teeming earth and that forget to beare Sooner that rivers will runne back or Thames With ribs of Ice in June would bind his streames Or Nature by whose strength the world endures Would change her course before you alter yours But O that treacherous breast to whom weake you Did trust our Counsells and wee both may rue Having his falshood found too late 't was hee That made me cast you guilty and you me Whilst he black wrech betray'd each simple word Wee spake unto the cunning of a third Curst may hee be that so our love hath slaine And wander on the earth wretched as Cain Wretched as hee and not deserve least pitty In plaguing him let misery be witty Let all eyes shunne him and hee shunne each eye Till hee be noysome as his infamie May he without remorse deny God thrice And not be trusted more on his Soules price And after all selfe torment when hee dyes May Wolves teare out his heart Vultures his eyes Swine eate his bowels and his falser tongue That utter'd all be to some Raven flung And let his carrion coarse be a longer feast To the Kings dogges then any other beast Now have I curst let us our love revive In mee the flame was never more alive I could beginne againe to court and praise And in that pleasure lengthen the short dayes Of my lifes lease like Painters that do take Delight not in made worke but whiles they make I could renew those times when first I saw Love in your eyes that gave my tongue the law To like what you lik'd and at maskes and playes Commend the selfe same Actors the same wayes Aske how you did and often with intent Of being officious be impertinent All which were such soft pastimes as in these Love was as subtilly catch'd as a disease But being got it is a treasure sweet Which to defend is harder then to get And ought not be prophan'd on either part For though 't is got by chance 't is kept by art NO Lover saith I love nor any other Can judge a perfect Lover Hee thinkes that else none can or will agree That any loves but hee I cannot say I lov'd for who can say Hee was kill'd yesterday Love with excesse of heat more yong then old Death kills with too much cold Wee dye but once and who lov'd last did die Hee that saith twice doth lye For though hee seeme to move and stirre a while It doth the sense beguile Such life is like the light which bideth yet When the lifes light is set Or like the heat which fire in solid matter Leaves behinde two houres after Once I love and dyed and am now become Mine Epitaph and Tombe Here dead men speake their last and so do I Love-slaine loe here I dye A Hymne to Christ at the Authors last going into Germany IN what torne ship soever I embarke That ship shall be my embleme of thy Arke What sea soever swallow mee that flood Shall be to mee an embleme of thy blood Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face yet through that maske I know those eyes Which though they turne away sometimes They never will despise I sacrifice this Iland unto thee And all whom I lov'd there and who lov'd mee When I have put our seas twixt them and mee Put thou thy seas betwixt my sinnes and thee As the trees sap doth seeke the root below In winter in my winter now I goe Where none but thee th' Eternall root Of true Love I may know Nor thou nor thy religion dost controule The amorousnesse of an harmonious Soule But thou would'st have that love thy selfe As thou Art jealous Lord so I am jealous now Thou lov'st not till from loving more thou free My soule Who ever gives takes libertie O if thou car'st not whom I love Alas thou lov'st not mee Seale then this bill of my Divorce to All On whom those fainter beames of love did fall Marry those loves which in youth scattered bee On Fame Wit Hopes false mistresses to thee Churches are best for Prayer that have least light To see God only I goe out of sight And to scape stormy dayes I chuse An Everlasting night The Lamentations of Ieremy for the most part according to Tremelius CHAP. I. 1 HOw sits this citie late most populous Thus solitary and like a widdow thus Amplest of Nations Queene of Provinces She was who now thus tributary is 2 Still in the night shee weepes and her teares fall Downe by her cheekes along and none of all Her lovers comfort her Perfidiously Her friends have dealt and now are enemie 3 Unto great bondage and afflictions Juda is captive led Those nations
in Sion which hath power To eate and her foundations to devour 12 Nor would the Kings of the earth nor all which live In the inhabitable world beleeve That any adversary any foe Into Ierusalem should enter so 13 For the Priests sins and Prophets which have shed Blood in the streets and the just murthered 14 Which when those men whom they made blinde did stray Thorough the streets defiled by the way With blood the which impossible it was Their garments should scape touching as they passe 15 Would cry aloud depart defiled men Depart depart and touch us not and then They fled and strayd and with the Gentiles were Yet told their friends they should not long dwell there 16 For this they are scattered by Jehovahs face VVho never will regard them more No grace Unto their old men shall the foe afford Nor that they are Priests redeeme them from the sword 17 And wee as yet for all these miseries Desiring our vaine helpe consume our eyes And such a nation as cannot save VVe in desire and speculation have 18 They hunt our steps that in the streets wee feare To goe our end is now approached neere Our dayes accomplish'd are this the last day Eagles of heaven are not so swift as they 19 VVhich follow us o'r mountaine tops they flye At us and for us in the desart lye 20 The annointed Lord breath of our nostrils hee Of whom we said under his shadow wee Shall with more ease under the Heathen dwell Into the pit which these men digged fell 21 Rejoyce O Edoms daughter joyfull bee Thou which inhabitst her for unto thee This cup shall passe and thou with drunkennesse Shalt fill thy selfe and shew thy nakednesse 22 And then they sinnes O Sion shall be spent The Lord will not leave thee in banishment Thy sinnes O Edoms daughter hee will see And for them pay thee with captivitie CAP. V. 1 REmember O Lord what is fallen on us See and marke how we are reproached thus 2 For unto strangers our possession Is turn'd our houses unto Aliens gone 3 Our mothers are become as widowes wee As Orphans all and without fathers be 4 Waters which are our owne wee drunke and pay And upon our owne wood a price they lay 5 Our persecutors on our necks do sit They make us travaile and not intermit 6 We stretch our hands unto th' Egyptians To get us bread and to the Assyrians 7 Our Fathers did these sinnes and are no more But wee do beare the sinnes they did before 8 They are but servants which do rule us thus Yet from their hands none would deliver us 9 With danger of our life our bread wee gat For in the wildernesse the sword did wait 10 The tempests of this famine wee liv'd in Black as an Ocean colour'd had our kinne 11 In Iudaes cities they the maids abus'd By force and so women in Sion us'd 12 The Princes with their hands they hung no grace Nor honour gave they to the Elders face 13 Unto the mill our yong men carried are And children fell under the wood they bare 14 Elders the gates youth did their songs forbeare Gone was our joy our dancings mournings were 15 Now is the crowne falne from our head and woe Be unto us because we'have sinned so 16 For this our hearts do languish and for this Over our eyes a cloudy dimnesse is 17 Because mount Sion desolate doth lye And foxes there do goe at libertie 18 But thou O Lord art ever and thy throne From generation to generation 19 Why should'st thou forget us eternally Or leave us thus long in this misery 20 Restore us Lord to thee that so we may Returne and as of old renew our day 21 For oughtest thou O Lord despise us thus 22 And to be utterly enrag'd at us SATYRES Satyre I. AWay thou fondling motley humorist Leave mee and in this standing woodden chest Consorted with these few bookes let me lye In prison and here be coffin'd when I dye Here are Gods conduits grave Divines and here Natures Secretary the Philosopher And jolly Statesmen which teach how to tie The sinewes of a cities mistique bodie Here gathering Chroniclers and by them stand Giddie fantastique Poëts of each land Shall I leave all this constant company And follow headlong wild uncertaine thee First sweare by thy best love in earnest If thou which lov'st all canst love any best Thou wilt not leave mee in the middle street Though some more spruce companion thou dost meet Not though a Captaine do come in thy way Bright parcell gilt with forty dead mens pay Not though a briske perfum'd piert Courtier Deigne with a nod thy courtesie to answer Nor come a velvet Justice with a long Great traine of blew coats twelve or fourteen strong Wilt thou grin or fawne on him or prepare A speech to Court his beautious sonne and heire For better or worse take mee or leave mee To take and leave mee is adultery Oh monstrous superstitious puritan Of refin'd manners yet ceremoniall man That when thou meet'st one with enquiring eyes Dost search and like a needy broker prize The silke and gold he weares and to that rate So high or low dost raise thy formall hate That wilt consort none untill thou have knowne What lands hee hath in hope or of his owne As though all thy companions should make thee Jointures and marry thy deare company Why should'st thou that dost not onely approve But in ranke it chie lust desire and love The nakednesse and barrennesse to enjoy of thy plumpe muddy whore or prostitute boy Hate vertue though shee be naked and bare At birth and death our bodies naked are And till our Soules be unapparrelled Of bodies they from blisse are banished Mans first blest state was naked when by sinne Hee lost that yet hee was cloath'd but in beasts skin And in this course attire which I now weare With God and with the Muses I conferre But since thou like a contrite penitent Charitably warm'd of thy sinnes dost repent These vanities and giddinesses loe I shut my chamber doore and come le ts goe But sooner may a cheape whore who hath beene Worne by as many severall men in sinne As are black feathers or musk-colour hose Name her childs right true father ' mongst all those Sooner may one guesse who shall beare away The infant of London Heire to an India And sooner may a gulling weather Spie By drawing forth heavens Sceanes tell certainly What fashioned hats or ruffes or suits next yeare Our subtile wittied antique youths will weare Then thou when thou depart'st from mee can show Whither why when or with whom thou wouldst go But how shall I be pardon'd my offence That thus have sinn'd against my conscience Now we are in the street He first of all Improvidently proud creepes to the wall And so imprisoned and hem'd in by mee Sells for a little state high libertie Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet
of all our Soules devotion As vertue was in the first blinded age Are not heavens joyes as valiant to asswage Lusts as earths honour was to them Alas As wee do them in meanes shall they surpasse Us in the end and shall thy fathers spirit Meete blinde Philosophers in heaven whose merit Of strict life may be imputed faith and heare Thee whom hee taught so easie wayes and neare To follow damn'd O if thou dar'st feare this This feare great courage and high valour is Dar'st thou ayd mutinous-Dutch and dar'st thou lay Thee in ships woodden Sepulchers a prey To leaders rage to stormes to shot to dearth Dar'st thou dive seas and dungeons of the earth Hast thou couragious fite to thaw the ice Of frozen North discoueries and thrise Colder then Salamanders like divine Children in th'oven fires of Spaine and the line Whose countries limbecks to our bodies bee Canst thou for gaine beare and must every hee Which cryes not Goddesse to thy Mistresse draw Or eate thy poysonous words courage of straw O desperate coward wilt thou seeme bold and To thy foes and his who made thee to stand Sentinell in his worlds garrison thus yeeld And for forbidden warres leave th' appointed field Know thy foe the foule devill h 'is whom thou Strivest to please for hate not love would allow Thee faine his whole Realme to be quit and as The world 's all parts wither away and passe So the worlds selfe thy other lov'd foe is In her decrepit wayne and thou loving this Dost love a withered and worne strumpet last Flesh it selfe death and joyes which flesh can taste Thou lovest and thy faire goodly soule which doth Give this flesh power to taste joy thou dost loath Seeke true religion O where Mirreus Thinking her unhous'd her and fled from us Seekes her at Rome there because hee doth know That shee was there a thousand yeares agoe He loves the ragges so as wee here obey The statecloth where the Prince sate yesterday Crants to such brave Loves will not be inthrall'd But loves her onely who at Geneva is call'd Religion plaine simple sullen yong Contemptuous yet unhansome As among Lecherous humors there is one that judges No wenches wholsome but course country drudges Graius stayes still at home here and because Some Preachers vile ambitious bauds and lawes Still new like fashions bids him thinke that shee Which dwels with us is onely perfect hee Imbraceth her whom his Godfathers will Tender to him being tender as Wards still Take such wives as their Guardians offer or Pay valewes Carelesse Phrygius doth abhorre All because all cannot be good as one Knowing some women whores dares marry none Graccus loves all as one and thinkes that so As women do in divers countries goe In divers habits yet are still one kinde So doth so is Religion and this blindnesse too much light breeds but unmoved thou Of force must one and forc'd but one allow And the right aske thy father which is shee Let him aske his though truth and falshood bee Neare twins yet truth a little elder is Be busie to seeke her beleeve mee this Hee 's not of none nor worst that seekes the best To adore or scorne an image or protest May all be bad doubt wisely in strange way To stand inquiring right is not to stray To sleepe or runne wrong is on a huge hill Cragg'd and steep Truth stands and hee that will Reach her about must and about must goe And what the hills suddennes resists winne so Yet strive so that before age deaths twilight Thy Soule rest for none can worke in that night To will implyes delay therefore now doe Hard deeds the bodies paines hard knowledge to The mindes indeavours reach and mysteries Are like the Sunne dazling yet plaine to all eyes Keepe the truth which thou hast found men do not stand In so ill case that God hath with his hand Sign'd Kings blanck-charters to kill whom they hate Nor are they Vicars but hangmen to Fate Foole and wretch wilt thou let thy Soule be tyed To mans lawes by which she shall not be tryed At the last day Will it then boot thee To say a Philip or a Gregory A Harry or a Martin taught thee this Is not this excuse for mere contraries Equally strong cannot both sides say so That thou mayest rightly obey power her bounds know Those past her nature name is chang'd to be Then humble to her is idolatrie As streames are Power is those blest flowers that dwell At the rough streames calme head thrive and do well But having left their roots and themselves given To the streames tyrannous rage alas are driven Through mills rockes woods and at last almost Consum'd in going in the sea are lost So perish Soules which more chuse mens unjust Power from God claym'd then God himselfe to trust Satyre IIII. WEll I may now receive and die My sinne Indeed is great but I have beene in A Purgatorie such as fear'd hell is A recreation and scant map of this My minde neither with prides itch nor yet hath been Poyson'd with love to see or to bee seene I had no suit there nor new suite to shew Yet went to Court But as Glaze which did goe To Masse in jest catch'd was faine to disburse The hundred markes which is the Statutes curse Before he scapt So'it pleas'd my destinie Guilty of my sin of going to thinke me As prone to all ill and of good as forgetfull as proud as lustfull and as much in debt As vaine as witlesse and as false as they Which dwell in Court for once going that way Therefore I suffered this Towards me did runne A thing more strange then on Niles slime the Sunne E'r bred or all which into Noahs Arke came A thing which would have pos'd Adam to name Stranger then seaven Antiquaries studies Then Africks Monsters Guianaes rarities Stranger then strangers One who for a Dane In the Danes Massacre had sure beene slaine If he had liv'd then And without helpe dies When next the Prentises'gainst Strangers rise One whom the watch at noone lets scarce goe by One to whom the examining Justice sure would cry Sir by your priesthood tell me what you are His cloths were strāge though coarse black though bare Sleevelesse his jerkin was and it had beene Velvet but 't was now so much ground was seene Become Tufftaffatie and our children shall See it plaine Rashe awhile then nought at all This thing hath travail'd and saith speakes all tongues And only knoweth what to all States belongs Made of th' Accents and best phrase of all these He speakes one language If strange meats displease Art can deceive or hunger force my tast But Pedants motley tongue souldiers bumbast Mountebankes drugtongue nor the termes of law Are strong enough preparatives to draw Me to beare this yet I must be content With his tongue in his tongue call'd complement In which he can win widdowes and
write a good hand which hath equaled one excellent master in his A another in his B much lesse hee which hath sought all the excellent masters and employed all his time to exceede in one letter because not so much an excellency of any nor every one as an evennesse and proportion and respect to one another gives the perfection So is no man vertuous by particular example Not he which doth all actions to the patterne of the most valiant or liberall which Histories afford Nor he which chuses from every one their best actions and therupon doth something like those Perchance such may bee in via perficiendorum which Divines allow to Monasticall life but not Perfectorum which by them is only due to prelacy For vertue is even and continuall and the same and can therefore breake no where nor admit ends nor beginnings It is not only not broken but not tyed together He is not vertuous out of whose actions vou can pick an excellent one Vice and her fruits may be seene because they are thick bodies but not vertue which is all light And vices have swellings and fits and noise because being extremes they dwel far asunder and they maintaine both a foraine warre against vertue and a civill against one another and affect soveraignty as vertue doth society The later Physitians say that when our naturall inborne preservative is corrupted or wasted and must be restored by alike extracted from other bodies the chiefe care is that the mummy have in it no excelling quality but an equally digested temper And such is true vertue But men who have preferred money before all thinke they deale honourably with vertue if they compare her with money And think that as mony is not called base til the allay exceed the pure So they are vertuous enough if they have enough to make their actions currant which is if either they get praise or in a lower abasing if they incurre not infamy or penalty But you know who said Angusta innocentia est ad legem bonum esse which rule being given for positive lawes severe mistakers apply even to Gods law and perchance against his commandement binde themselves to his counsailes beyond his lawes But they are worse that think that because some men formerly wastfull live better with halfe their rents then they did with all being now advantaged with discretion and experience therefore our times need lesse morall vertue then the first because we have Christianity which is the use and application of all vertue As though our religion were but an art of thrift to make a little vertue goe far For as plentifull springs are fittest and best become large Aqueducts so doth much vertue such a steward and officer as a Christian But I must not give you a Homily for a letter I said a great while since that custome made men like We who have beene accustomed to one another are like in this that we love not businesse This therefore shall not be to you nor me a busie letter I end with a probleme whose errand is to aske for his fellowes I pray before you ingulfe your selfe in the Progresse leave them for mee and such other of my papers as you will lend mee till your returne And besides this allegoricall lending lend me truly your counsells And love God and me whilest I love him and you To Sir H. G. SIR THis Teusday morning which hath brought me to London presents mee with all your letters Mee thought it was a rent day I meane such as yours and not as mine And yet such too when I considered how much I ought you for them How good a mother how fertile and abundant the understanding is if shee have a good father And how well friendship performes that office For that which is denyed in other generations is done in this of yours For hers is superfaetation child upon child and that which is more strange twinnes at a latter conception If in my second religion friendship I had a conscience either Errantem to mistake good and bad and indifferent or Opinantem to be ravished by others opinions or examples or Dubiam to adhere to neither part or Scrupulosam to encline to one but upon reasons light in themselves or indiscussed in mee which are almost all the diseases of conscience I might mistake your often long and busie letters and feare you did but intreate me to have mercy upon you and spare you For you know our court tooke the resolution that it was the best way to dispatch the French Prince backe againe quickly to receive him solemnely ceremoniously and expensively when he hoped a domestique and durable entertainment I never meant to excell you in waight nor price but in number and bulke I thought I might Because he may cast up a greater summe who hath but forty small moneyes then hee with twenty Portuguesses The memory of friends I meane only for letters neither enters ordinarily into busied men because they are ever employed within nor into men of pleasure because they are never at home For these wishes therefore which you wonne out of your pleasure and recreation you were as excusable to mee if you writ seldome as Sir H. Wotton is under the oppression of businesse or the necessity of seeming so Or more then hee because I hope you have both pleasure and businesse Only to me who have neither this omission were sinne For though writing be not of the precepts of friendship but of the counsells yet as in some cases to some men counsells become precepts though not immediately from God yet very roundly and quickly from his Church as selling and dividing goods in the first time continence in the Romane Church and order and decency in ours so to mee who can doe nothing else it seemes to binde my conscience to write And it is sinne to doe against the conscience though that erre Yet no mans letters might be better wanted then mine since my whole letter is nothing else but a confession that I should and would write I ought you a letter in verse before by mine owne promise now that you thinke you have hedged in that debt by a greater by your letter in verse I thinke it now most seasonable and fashionall for mee to breake At least to write presently were to accuse my selfe of not having read yours so often as such a letter deserves from you to mee To make my debt greater for such is the desire of all who cannot or meane not to pay I pray reade these two problemes for such light flashes as these have beene my hawkings in my Surry journies I accompany them with another ragge of verses worthy of that name for the smalnesse and age for it hath long lyen among my other papers and laughs at them that have adventured to you for I thinke till now you saw it not and neither you nor it should repent it Sir if I were any thing my love to you might multiply
it and dignifie it But infinite nothings are but one such Yet since even Chymeraes have some name and titles I am also Yours To Sr. H. G. SIR IN the history or stile of friendship which is best written both in deeds and words a letter which is of a mixed nature and hath something of both is a mixt parenthesis It may be left out yet it contributes though not to the beeing yet to the verdure and freshnesse thereof Letters have truly the same office as oathes As these amongst light and empty men are but fillings and pauses and interjections but with waightier they are sad attestations So are letters to some complement and obligation to others For mine as I never authorized my servant to lye in my behalfe for if it were officious in him it might be worse in mee so I allow my letters much lesse that civill dishonesty both because they goe from mee more considerately and because they are permanent for in them I may speake to you in your chamber a yeare hence before I know not whom and not heare my selfe They shall therefore ever keepe the sincerity and intemeratenesse of the fountaine whence they are derived And as wheresoever these leaves fall the root is in my heart so shall they as that sucks good affections towards you there have ever true impressions thereof Thus much information is in very leaves that they can tell what the tree is and these can tell you I am a friend and an honest man Of what generall use the fruit should speake and I have none and of what particular profit to you your application and experimenting should tell you and you can make none of such a nothing Yet even of barren Sicamores such as I there were use if either any light flashings or scorching vehemencies or sudden showers made you need so shadowie an example or Remembrancer But Sir your fortune and minde do you this happy injury that they make all kinde of fruits uselesse unto you Therefore I have placed my love wisely where I need communicate nothing All this though perchance you reade it not till Michaelmas was told you at Michin 15. Aug. 1607. To Sr H. G. SIR IT should be no interruption to your pleasures to heare mee often say that I love you and that you are as much my meditation as my selfe I often compare not you and mee but the Spheare in which your resolutions are and my wheele both I hope concentrique to God for me thinkes the new Astronomie is thus applyable well that wee which are a little earth should rather move towards God then that hee which is fulfilling and can come no whither should move towards us To your life full of variety nothing is old nor new to mine And as to that life all stickings and hesitations seeme stupid and stony so to this all fluid slipperinesses and transitory migrations seeme giddy and feathery In that life one is ever in the porch or posterne going in or out never within his house himself It is a garment made of remnants a life raveld out into ends a line discontinued a number of small wretched points uselesse because they concurre not A life built of past future not proposing any constant present They have more pleasures then wee but not more pleasure they joy oftner wee longer and no man but of so much understanding as may deliver him from being a foole would change with a mad-man which had a better proportion of wit in his often Lucidis You know they which dwell farthest from the Sunne if in any convenient distance have longer dayes better appetites better digestion better growth and longer life And all these advantages have their mindes who are well removed from the scorchings and dazlings and exhalings of the worlds glory but neither of our lifes are in such extremes for you living at Court without ambition which would burne you or envy which would devest others live in the Sunne not in the fire and I which live in the Country without stupifying am not in darknesse but in shadow which is not no light but a pallid watrish and diluted one As all shadowes are of one colour if you respect the body from which they are cast for our shadows upon clay will be dirty and in a garden greene and flowery so all retyrings into a shadowie life are alike from all causes and alike subject to the barbarousnesse and insipid dulnes of the countrie Only the employment and that upon which you cast and bestow your pleasure businesse or bookes gives it the tincture and beauty But truly wheresoever we are if wee can but tell our selves truly what where we would be we may make any state place such For we are so composed that if abundance or glory scorch melt us we have an earthly cave our bodies to go into by consideration coole our selves and if we be frozen and contracted with lower and darke fortunes wee have within us a torch a soule lighter and warmer then any without we are therefore our owne umbrellas and our owne Sun◠These Sir are the Sallads and Onyons of Michin sent to you with as wholsome affection as your other friends send Melons and Quelque choses from Court and London If I present you not as good dyet as they I would yet say grace to theirs and bid much good do it you I send you with this a letter which I sent to the Countesse It is not my use nor duty to do so But for your having of it there were but two consents and I am sure you have mine and you are sure you have hers I also writ to her Ladiship for the verses shee shewed in the garden which I did not onely to extort them nor onely to keepe my promise of writing for that I had done in the other letter and perchance shee hath forgotten the promise nor onely because I thinke my letters just good enough for a Progresse but because I would write apace to her whilst it is possible to expresse that which I yet know of her for by this growth I see how soone she will be ineffable To the Countesse of Bedford Happiest and worthyest Lady I Do not remember that ever I have seen a petition in verse I would not therefore be singular nor adde these to your other papers I have yet adventured so neare as to make a petitiō for verse It is for those your Ladiship did me the honor to see in a Twicknam garden except you repēt your making having mended your judgement by thinking worse that is better because juster of their subject They must needs be an excellent exercise of your wit which speake so well of so ill I humbly begge them of your Ladiship with two such promises as to any other of your compositions were threatnings That I will not shew them that I will not beleeve them And nothing should be so used which comes from your braine or heart
with them who home-ward goe Elegie IMage of her whom I love more then she Whose faire impression in my faithfull heart Makes mee her Medall and makes her love mee As Kings do coynes to which their stamps impart The value goe and take my heart from hence Which now is growne too great and good for me Honours oppresse weake spirits and our sense Strong objects dull the more the lesse wee see When you are gone and Reason gone with you Then Fantasie is Queene and Soule and all She can present joyes meaner then you do Convenient and more proportionall So if I dreame I have you I have you For all our joyes are but fantasticall And so I scape the paine for paine is true And sleepe which locks up sense doth lock out all After a such fruition I shall wake And but the waking nothing shall repent And shall to love more thankfull Sonnets make Then if more honour teares and paines were spent But dearest heart and dearer image stay Alas true joyes at best are dreame enough Though you stay here you passe too fast away For even at first lifes Taper is a snuffe Fill'd with her love may I be rather grown Mad with much heart then ideott with none Elegie on Prince Henry LOoke to mee faith and looke to my faith God For both my centers feele this period Of waight one center one of greatnesse is And Reason is that center Faith is this For into'our reason flow and there do end All that this naturall world doth comprehend Quotidian things and equidistant hence Shut in for man in one circumference But for th'enormous greatnesses which are So disproportion'd and so angulare As is Gods essence place and providence Where how when what soules do departed hence These things eccentrique else on faith do strike Yet neither all nor upon all alike For reason put to'her best extension Almost meetes faith and makes both centers one And nothing ever came so nere to this As contemplation of that Prince wee misse For all that faith might credit mankinde could Reason still seconded that this prince would If then least moving of the center make More then if whole hell belch'd the world to shake What must this do centers distracted so That wee see not what to beleeve or know Was it not well beleev'd till now that hee Whose reputation was an extasie On neighbour States which knew not why to wake Till hee discover'd what wayes he would take For whom what Princes angled when they tryed Met a Torpedo and were stupified And others studies how he would be bent Was his great fathers greatest instrument And activ'st spirit to convey and tie This soule of peace through Christianity Was it not well beleev'd that hee would make This generall peace th' Eternall overtake And that his times might have stretch'd out so farre As to touch those of which they emblems are For to confirme this just beleefe that now The last dayes came wee saw heav'n did allow That but from his aspect and exercise In peacefull times Rumors of war did rise But now this faith is heresie we must Still stay and vexe our great grand mother Dust Oh is God prodigall hath he spent his store Of plagues on us and onely now when more Would ease us much doth he grudge misery And will not let 's enjoy our curse to dy As for the earth throwne lowest downe of all T' were an ambition to desire to fall So God in our desire to dye doth know Our plot for ease in being wretched so Therefore we live though such a life wee have As but so many mandrakes on his grave What had his growth and generation done When what we are his putrefaction Sustaines in us Earth which griefes animate Nor hath our world now other Soule then that And could griefe get so high as heav'n that Quire Forgetting this their new joy would desire With griefe to see him hee had staid below To rectifie our errours They foreknow Is th' other center Reason faster then Where should we looke for that now we' are not men For if our Reason be'our connexion Of causes now to us there can be none For as if all the substances were spent 'T were madnesse to enquire of accident So is't to looke for reason hee being gone The onely subject reason wrought upon If Fate have such a chaine whose divers links Industrious man discerneth as hee thinks When miracle doth come and so steale in A new linke man knowes not where to begin At a much deader fault must reason bee Death having broke off such a linke as hee But now for us with busie proofe to come That we'have no reason would prove wee had some So would just lamentations Therefore wee May safelyer say that we are dead then hee So if our griefs wee do not well declare We'have double excuse he 'is not dead and we are Yet I would not dy yet for though I bee Too narrow to thinke him as hee is hee Our Soules best baiting and midd-period In her long journey of considering God Yet no dishonour I can reach him thus As he embrac'd the fires of love with us Oh may I since I live but see or heare That she-Intelligence which mov'd this spheare I pardon Fate my life who ere thou bee Which hast the noble conscience thou art shee I conjure thee by all the charmes he spoke By th'oathes which onely you two never broke By all the soules yee sigh'd that if you see These lines you wish I knew your history So much as you two mutuall heav'ns were here I were an Angell singing what you were Psalme 137. I. BY Euphrates flowry side We did bide From deare Juda farre absented Tearing the aire with our cryes And our eyes With their streames his streame augmented II. When poore Syons dolefull state Desolate Sacked burned and inthrall'd And the Temple spoil'd which wee Ne'r should see To our mirthlesse mindes wee call'd III. Our mute harpes untun'd unstrung Up wee hung On greene willowes neere beside us Where we sitting all forlorne Thus in scorne Our proud spoylers 'gan deride us IV. Come sad Captives leave your moanes And your groanes Under Syons ruines bury Tune your harps and sing us layes In the praise Of your God and let 's be merry V. Can ah can we leave our moanes And our groanes Under Syons ruines bury Can we in this Land sing Layes In the praise Of our God and here be merry VI. No deare Syon if I yet Do forget Thine affliction miserable Let my nimble joynts become Stiffe and numme To touch warbling harpe unable VII Let my tongue lose singing skill Let it still To my parched roofe be glewed If in either harpe or voice I rejoyce Till thy joyes shall be renewed VIII Lord curse Edom's traiterous kinde Beare in minde In our ruines how they revell'd Sack kill burne they cry'd out still Sack burne kill Downe with all let all be levell'd IX And thou Babel when the