Sire of Repentance! child of fond Desire!
That blow'st the chymies', and the lovers', fire,
Leading them still insensib'y' on
By the strange witchcraft of "anon!"
By thee the one does changing Nature, through
Her endless labyrinths, pursue;
And th' other chases woman, whilst she goes More ways and turns than hunted Nature knows.
HOPE! of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure!
[health!
Thou captive's freedom, and thou sick man's
Thou loser's victory, and thou beggar's wealth!
Thu manna, which from Heaven we eat,
To every taste a several meat!
Thou strong retreat! thou sure-entail'd estate,
Which nought has power to alienate!
Thou pleasant, honest flatterer! for none
Flatter unhappy men, but thou alone!
Hope! thou first-fruits of happiness!
Thou gentle dawning of a bright success!
Thou good preparative, without which our joy
Does work too strong, and, whilst it cures, de-
Who out of Fortune's reach dost stand,
And art a blessing still in hand!
Whilst thee, her earnest-money, we retain,
We certain are to gain,
Whether she her bargain break, or else fulfil;
Thou only good, not worse for ending ill!
Brother of Faith! 'twixt whom and thee The joys of Heaven and Earth divided be! Though Faith be heir, and have the fixt estate, Thy portion yet in moveables is great.
Happiness itself's all one
In thee, or in possession!
Only the future's thine, the present bis!
Thine's the more hard and noble bliss: Best apprebonder of our joys! which hast So long a reach, and yet canst hold so fast! Hope! thou sad lovers' only friend! Thou Way, that may'st dispute it with the End! For love, I fear, 's a fruit that does delight The taste itself less than the sinell and sight.
Fruition more deceitful is
Than thou canst be, when thou dost miss; Men leave thee by obtaining, and straight flee Some other way again to thee; And that's a pleasant country, without doubt, To which all soon return that travel out,
LOVE'S INGRATITUDE.
I trerie thought, thou fond ingrateful sin!
When first I let thee in,
And gave thee but a part
In my unwary heart,
That thou would'st e'er have grown
So false or strong to make it all thine own.
At mine own breast with care I fed thee still,
Letting thee suck thy fill;
And daintily I nourish'd thee
With idle thoughts and poetry!
What ill returns dost thou allow!
I fed thee then, and thou dost starve me now.
There was a time when thou wast cold and chill,
Nor hadst the power of doing ill;
Into my bosom did I take
This frozen and benumbed snake,
Not fearing from it any harm;
But now it stings that breast which made it warm, What cursed weed's this Love! but one grain sow,
And the whole field 'twill overgrow;
Straight will it choak up and devour
Each wholesome herb and beauteous flower!
Nay, unless something soon I do,
'Twili kill, I fear, my very laurel too.
But now all's gone-I now, alas! complain,
Declare, protest, and threat, in vain;
Since, by my own unfore'd consent,
The traitor has my government,
And is so settled in the throne,
That 'twere rebellion now to claim mine own.
I KNOW 'tis sordid, and 'tis low,
(All this as well as you I know)
Which I so hotly now pursue,
(I know all this as well as you)
But, whilst this cursed flesh I bear,
And all the weakness and the baseness there,
Alas! alas! it will be always so,
In vain, exceedingly in vain,
I rage sometimes, and bite my chain;
Yet to what purpose do I bite
With teeth which ne'er will break it quite?
For, if the chiefest Christian bead
Was by this sturdy tyrant buffeted,
What wonder is it if weak I be slain?
As water fluid is, till it do grow
Solid and fixt by cold;
So in warm seasons Love does loosely flow;
Frost only can it hold: A woman's rigour and disdain
Does his swift course restrain.
Though constant and consistent now it be, Yet, when kind beams appear,
It melts, and glides apace into the sea,
And loses itself there.
So the Sun's amorous play
Kisses the ice away.
You may in vulgar loves find always this:
But my substantial love
Of a more firm and perfect nature is;
No weathers can it move:
Though beat dissolve the ice again,
The crystal solid does remain.
THEN like some wealthy island thou shalt lie, And like the sea about it, I;
Thou, like fair Albion to the sailor's sight, Spreading her beauteous bosom all in white; Like the kind Ocean I will be,
Here black, there brown, here tawny, and there white;
With loving arms for ever clasping thee.
But I'll embrace thee gentlier far than so;
As their fresh banks soft rivers do:
Nor shall the proudest planet boast a power
Of making my full love to ebb one hour;
It never dry or low can prove,
Whilst thy unwasted fountain feeds my love.
Such heat and vigour shall our kisses bear,
As if like doves w' engender'd there:
No bound nor rule my pleasures shail endure,
In love there's none too much an epicure:
Nought shell my hands or lips control;
I'll kiss thee through, I'll kiss thy very soul.
Yet nothing but the Night our sports shall know;
Night, that's both blind and silent too!
Alpheus found not a more secret trace,
His lov'd Sicanian fountain to embrace,
Creeping so far beneath the sea,
Than I will do t'enjoy and feast on thee.
Men, out of wisdom; women, out of pride,
The pleasant thefts of love do hide:
That may secure thee; but thou 'ast yet from me
A more infallible security;
For there's no danger I should tell
The joys which are to me unspeakable.
In vain, thou drowsy god! I thee invoke;
For thou, who dost from fumes arise-
Thou, who man's soul dost overshade
With a thick cloud by vapours made-
Canst have no power to shut his eyes,
Or passage of his spirits to choke,
Whose flame's so pure that it sends up no smoke.
Yet how do tears but from such vapours rise?
Tears, that bewinter all my year?
The fate of Egypt I sustain,
And never feel the dew of rain,
From clouds which in the head appear;
But all my too much moisture owe
To overflowings of the heart below.
Thou, who dost men (as nights to colours do)
Bring all to an equality!
Come, thou just god! and equal me
Awhile to my disdainful She:
In that condition let me lie,
Till Love does me the favour shew:
Love equals all a better way than you.
Then never more shalt thou b'invok'd by me; Watchful as spirits and gods I'll prove: Let her but grant, and then will I Thee and thy kinsman Death defy; For, betwixt thee and them that love, Never will an agreement be;
Thou scorn'st th' unhappy, and the happy, thee!
BEAUTY! thou wild fantastic ape,
Who dost in every country change thy shape!
Thou flatterer! which comply'st with every sight! Thou Babel, which confound'st the eye With unintelligible variety!
Who hast no certain what, nor where; But vary'st still, and dost thyself declare Inconstant, as thy she-professors are.
Beauty! Love's scene and masquerade, So gay by well-plac'd lights and distance made; False coin, with which th'impostor cheats us still; The stamp and colour good, but metal ili!
Which light or base we find, when we Weigh by enjoyment, and examine thee! For, though thy being be but show, 'Tis chiefly night which men to thee allow : And chuse t'enjoy thee, when thou least art Thou.
Beauty! thou active, passive ill! Which dy'st thyself as fast as thou dost kill ! Thou tulip, who thy stock in paint dost waste, Neither for physic good, nor smell, nor taste. Beauty! whose flames but meteors are, Short-liv'd and low, though thou would'st seem
Who dar'st not thine own home descry,
Pretending to dwell richly in the eye,
When thou, alas! dost in the fancy lie.
Beauty! whose conquests still are made O'er hearts by cowards kept, or else betray'd; Weak victor! who thyself destroy'd must be When Sickness storms, or Time besieges thee!
Thou unwholesome thaw to frozen age! Thou strong wine, which youth's fever dost enrage!
Thou tyrant, which leav'st no man free! Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be ! Thou murderer, which hast kill'd, and devil, which
In vain the men of learning comfort me,
And say I'm in a warm degree;
Say what they please, I say and swear
'Tis beyond eighty at least, if you 're not here.
It is, it is; I tremble with the frost,
And know that I the day have lost;
And those wild things which men they call,
I find to be but bears or foxes all.
Return, return, gay planet of mine East,
Of all that shines thou much the best!
And, as thou now descend'st to sea,
More fair and fresh rise up from thence to me!
Thou, who in many a propriety,
So truly art the Sun to me,
Add one more likeness (which I'm sure you | Then shall the world my noble ruin see,
And absence so much alter me,
This will the substance, I the shadow, be.
When from your well-wrought cabinet you take it,
And your bright looks awake it,
Ah! be not frighted if you see
The new-soul'd picture gaze on thee,
And hear it breathe a sigh or two;
For those are the first things that it will do.
My rival-image will be then thought blest,
And laugh at me as dispossest;
But thou, who (if I know thee right)
I' th' substance dost not much delight,
Wilt rather send again for me,
Who then shall but my picture's picture be.
THE CONCEALMENT.
No; to what purpose should I speak?
No, wretched heart! swell till you break.
She cannot love me if she would;
And, to say truth, 'twere pity that she should.
No; to the grave thy sorrows bear;
As silent as they will be there :
Since that lov'd hand this mortal wound does give,
So handsomely the thing contrive,
That she may guiltless of it live;
So perish, that her killing thee
May a chance-medley, and no murder, be.
'Tis nobler much for me, that I
By her beauty, not her anger, die:
This will look justly, and become
An execution; that a martyrdom.
The censuring world will ne'er refrain
From judging men by thunder slain.
She must be angry, sure, if I should be
So bold to ask her to make me,
By being her's, happier than she!
I will not; 'tis a milder fate
To fall by her not loving, than her hate.
And yet this death of mine, I fear,
Will ominous to her appear;
When, sound in every other part,
Her sacrifice is found without an heart;
For the last tempest of my death
Shall sigh out that too with my breath.
Some pity and some envy me; Then she herself, the mighty she, Shall grace my funerals with this truth; / "'Twas only love destroy'd the gentle youth!",
THE MONOPOLY...
WHAT mines of sulphur in my breast do lie,
That feed th' eternal burnings of my heart!
Not Etna flames more fierce or constantly,
The sounding shop of Vulcan's smoky art:
Vulcan his shop has placed there.
And Cupid's forge is set-up here.
Here all those arrows' mortal heads are made,
That fly so thick unseen through yielding air;
The Cyclops here, which labour at the trade,
Are Jealousy, Fear, Sadness, and Despair.
Ah, cruel god! and why to me
Gave you this curs'd monopoly?
I have the trouble, not the gains, of it:-
Give me but the disposal of one dart,
And then (I'll ask no other benefit)
Heat as you please your furnace in my heart:
So sweet's revenge to me, that I
Upon my foe would gladly die.
THE DISTANCE.
I'VE followed thee a year, at least,
And never stopp'd myself to rest; But yet can thee o'ertake no more Than this day can the day that went before. In this our fortunes equal prove To stars, which govern them above; Our stars, that move for ever round, With the same distance still betwixt them found.
In vain, alas! in vain I strive The wheel of Fate faster to drive; Since, if around it swiftlier fly, She in it mends her pace as much as I.
Hearts by Love strangely shuffled are, That there can never meet a pair! Tamelier than worms are lovers slain! The wounded heart ne'er turns to wound again.
I THOUGHT, I'll swear, I could have lov'd no more Than I had done before;
LOVE'S VISIBILITY... LOOKING ON HIS MISTRESS.
But you as easily might account,
Till to the top of numbers you amount,
As cast up my love's score.
Ten thousand millions was the sum;
Millions of endless millions are to come.
I'm sure her beauties cannot greater grow;
Why should my love do so ?
A real cause at first did move;
But mine own fancy now drives on my love,
With shadows from itself that flow.
My love, as we in numbers see,
By cyphers is increas'd eternally.
So the new-made and untry'd spheres above
Took their first turn from th' hand of Jove;
But are, since that beginning, found
By their own forms to move for ever round.
All violent motions short do prove;
But, by the length, 'tis plain to see
That love's a motion natural to me.
LOVE'S VISIBILITY.
WITH much of pain, and all the art I knew,
Have I endeavour'd hitherto
To hide my love, and yet all will not do.
The world perceives it, and, it may be, she;
Though so discreet and good she be,
By hiding it, to teach that skill to me.
Men without love have oft so cunning grown,
That something like it they have shown;
But none who had it ever seem'd t'have none.
Love's of a strangely open, simple kind,
Can no arts or disguises find,
But thinks none sees it 'cause itself is blind.
The very eye betrays our inward smart:
Love of himself left there a part,
When through it he past into the heart.
Or if by chance the face betray not it,
But keep the secret wisely, yet,
Like drunkenness, into the tongue 'twill get.
LOOKING ON, AND DISCOURSING
WITH, HIS MISTRESS.
THESE full two hours now have I gazing been,
What comfort by it can I gain?
To look on Heaven with mighty gulphs between
Was the great miser's greatest pain;
So near was he to Heaven's delight,
As with the blest converse he might,
Yet could not get one drop of water by 't.
Ah wretch! I seem to touch her now; but, oh,
What boundless spaces do us part!
Fortune, and friends, and all Earth's empty show,
My lowness, and her high desert:
But these might conquerable prove;
Nothing does me so far remove,
As her hard soul's aversion from my love.
So travellers, that lose their way by night,
If from afar they chance t' espy
Th'uncertain glimmerings of a taper's light,
Take flattering hopes, and think it nigh;
Till, wearied with the fruitless pain,
They sit them down, and weep in vain,
And there in darkness and despair remain.
RESOLVED TO LOVE.
I WONDER what the grave and wise
Think of all us that love;
Whether our pretty fooleries
Their mirth or anger move:
They understand not breath that words does want;
Our sighs to them are insignificant.
One of them saw me, th' other day,
Touch the dear hand which I admire;
My soul was melting straight away,
And dropt before the fire:
This silly wise-man, who pretends to know,
Ask'd why I look'd so pale, and trembled so?
Another, from my mistress' door
Saw me with eyes all wat'ry come;
Nor could the hidden cause explore,
But thought some smoke was in the room.
Such ignorance from unwounded learning came;
He knew tears made by smoke, but not by flame.
If learn'd in other things you be,
And have in love no skill,
For God's sake keep your arts from me,
For I'll be ignorant still:
Study or action others may embrace;
My love's my business, and my books her face.
These are but trifles, I confess,
Which me, weak mortal! move;
Nor is your busy seriousness
Less trifling than my love:
The wisest king, who from his sacred breast
Pronoune'd all vanity, chose it for the best.
Go Lid the needle his dear North forsake,
To which with trembling reverence it does
Go bid the stones a journey upwards make;
Go bid th'ambitious flame no more ascend:
And, when these false to their old motions prove,
Then shall I cease thee, thee alone, to love.
The fast-link'd chain of everlasting Fate
Does nothing tie more strong than me to you;
My fixt love hangs not on your love or hate,
But will be still the same, whate'er you do: You cannot kill my love with your disdain: Wound it you may, and make it live in pain. Me, mine example, let the Stoics use,
Their sad and cruel doctrine to maintain; Let all predestinators me produce,
Who struggle with eternal bonds in vain:
This fire I'm born to but 'tis she must tell,
Whether 't be beams of Heaven or flames of Hell.
You, who men's fortunes in their faces read,
To find out mine, look not, alas! on me;
But mark her face, and all the features heed;
For only there is writ my destiny:
Or, if stars show it, gaze not on the skies
But study the astrology of her eyes.
If thou find there kind and propitious rays,
What Mars or Saturn threaten I'll not fear;
I well believe the fate of mortal days
Is writ in Heaven; but oh, my heaven is there.
What can men learn from stars they scarce can
Two great lights rule the world, and her two me,
I thought that this some remedy might prove;
But oh, the mighty serpent Love,
Cut by this chance in pieces small,
In all still liv'd, and still it stung in all.
And now, alas! each little broken part
Feels the whole pain of all my heart;
And every smallest corner still
Lives with that torment which the whole did kill.
Even so rude armies, when the field they quit,
And into several quarters get;
Each troop does spoil and ruin more
Than all join'd in one body did before.
How many loves reign in my bosom now!
How many loves, yet all of you!
Thus have I chang'd with evil fate
My monarch-love into a tyrant-state.
THE USURPATION.
THOU 'adst to my soul no title or pretence;
I was mine own, and free,
Till I had given myself to thee;
But thou hast kept me slave and prisoner since. Well, since so insolent thou'rt grown, Fond tyrant! I'll depose thee from thy throne; Such outrages must not admitted be
In an elective monarchy.
Part of my heart by gift did to thee fall;
My country, kindred, and my best
Acquaintance, were to share the rest;
But thou, their covetous neighbour, draw'st out
Nay more; thou mak'st me worship thee, And would'st the rule of my religion be: Did ever tyrant claim such power as you,
To be both emperor and pope too?
The public miseries, and my private fate,
Deserve some tears; but greedy thou
(Insatiate maid!) wilt not allow
That I one drop from thee should alienate:
Nor wilt thou grant my sins a part,
Though the sole cause of most of them thou art;
Counting my tears thy tribute and thy due,
Since first mine eyes I gave to you.
Thou all my joys and all my hopes dost claim;
Thou ragest like a fire in me,
Converting all things into thee;
Nought can resist, or not increase the flame:
Nay, every grief and every fear
Thou dost devour, unless thy stamp it bear:
Thy presence, like the crowned basilisk's breath,
All other serpents puts to death.
As men in Hell are from diseases free,
So from all other ills am I';
Free from their known formality:
But all pains eminently lie in thee!
Alas, alas! 1hope in vain
My conquer'd soul from out thine hands to gain;
Since all the natives there thou 'ast overthrown,
And planted garrisons of thine own.
THOU worst estate ev'n of the sex that 's worst;
Therefore by Nature made at first
T' attend the weakness of our birth!
Slight outward curtain to the nuptial bed!
Thou case to buildings not yet finished!
Who, like the centre of the Earth,
Dost heaviest things attract to thee,
Though thou a point imaginary be !
A thing God thought for mankind so unfit,
That his first blessing ruin'd it.
Cold, frozen nurse of fiercest fires!
Who, like the parched plains of Afric's sand,
(A sterile, and a wild unlovely land!)
Art always scorch'd with hot desires,
Yet barren quite, didst thou not bring
Monsters and serpents forth thyself to sting!
Thou that bewitchest men, whilst thou dost dwell
Like a close conjurer in his cell,
And fear'st the day's discovering eye!
No wonder 'tis at all that thou should'st be
Such tedious and unpleasant company,
Who liv'st so melancholily!
Thou thing of subtile, slippery kind,
Which women lose, and yet no man can find!
Although I think thou never found wilt be,
Yet I 'm resolv'd to search for thee;
The search itself rewards the pains:
So, though the chymic his great secret miss,
(For neither it in art nor Nature is)
Yet things well worth his toil he gains;
And does his charge and labour pay
With good unsought experiments by the way.
Say what thou wilt, chastity is no more
Thee, than a porter is his door.
In vain to honour they pretend,
[walls;
Who guard themselves with ramparts and with
Them only Fame the truly valiant calls,
Who can an open breach defend.
Of thy quick loss can be no doubt,
Within so hated, and so lov'd without.
IMPOSSIBILITIES! oh no, there's none;
Could mine bring thy heart captive home
As easily other dangers were o'erthrown,
As Cæsar, after vanquish'd Rome,
His little Asian foes did overcome.
True lovers oft by Fortune are envied;
Oft Earth and Hell against them strive;
But Providence engages on their side,
And a good end at last does give:
At last, just men and lovers always thrive.
As stars (not powerful else) when they conjoin,
Change, as they please, the world's estate;
So thy heart in conjunction with mine
Shall our own fortunes regulate;
And to our stars themselves prescribe a fate. 'Twould grieve me much to find some bold ro
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