LEAVE, Chloris, leave, prithee no more
With want of love, or lightness charge me:
'Cause thy looks captived me before,
May not another's now enlarge me?
He, whose misguided zeal hath long
Paid homage to some star's pale light,
Better informed, may without wrong,
Leave that t'adore the queen of night.
Then if my heart, which long served thee,
Will to Carintha now incline;
Why termed inconstant should it be,
For bowing 'fore a richer shrine?
Censure that lover's such, whose will
Inferior objects can entice;
Who changes for the better still,
Makes that a virtue, you call vice.
Shall I hopeless then pursue
A fair shadow that still flies me?
Shall I still adore, and woo
A proud heart, that does despise me?
I a constant love may so,
But alas! a fruitless, show.
Shall I by the erring light
Of two crosser stars still sail? That do shine, but shine in spite,
Not to guide, but make me fail?
I a wandering course may steer,
But the harbour ne'er come near.
Whilst these thoughts my soul possess,
Reason passion would o'ersway;
Bidding me my flames suppress,
Or divert some other way:
But what reason would pursue,
That my heart runs counter to.
So a pilot, bent to make.
Search for some unfound out land,
Does with him the magnet take,
Sailing to the unknown strand ; But that (stir which way he will) To the loved north points still.
[“ Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonnets." 1657.]
My once dear love, helpless that I no more
Must call thee so, the rich affections' store
That fed our hopes, now lies exhaust and spent,
Like sums of treasure unto bankrupts lent.
We that did nothing study but the way
To love each other, with which thoughts the day
Rose with delight to us, and with them set,
Must learn the hateful art how to forget.
We that did nothing wish, that Heaven could give,
Beyond ourselves, nor did desire to live
Beyond that wish, all these now cancel must,
As if not writ in faith, but words and dust.
Yet witness those clear vows which lovers make;
Witness the chaste desires that never brake
Into unruly hearts; witness that breast
Which in thy bosom anchored his whole rest.
"Tis no default in us; I dare acquite
Thy maiden faith, thy purpose fair and white
As thy pure self; cross planets did envy
Us to each other, and Heaven did untie
Faster than vows could bind. O that the stars
When lovers meet, should stand opposed in wars!
Since, then, some higher Destinies command,
Let us not strive, nor labour to withstand
What is past help; the longest date of grief
Can never yield a hope of our relief;
And though we waste ourselves in moist laments,
Tears may drown us, but not our discontents.
Fold back our arms, take home our fruitless loves,
That must new fortunes try; like turtle doves
Dislodged from their haunts, we must in tears
Unwind a love knit up in many years.
In this last kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thyself; so thou again art free.
Thou in another, sad as that, re-send
The truest heart that lover e'er did lend.
Now turn from each; so fare our severed hearts As the divorced soul from her body parts.
My dearest love, when thou and I must part,
And th' icy hand of Death shall seize that heart
Which is all thine, within some spacious will
I'll leave no blanks for legacies to fill:
'Tis my ambition to die one of those
Who but himself hath nothing to dispose.
And since that is already thine, what need
I to re-give it by some newer deed?
Yet take it once again, free circumstance.
Does oft the value of mean things advance:
Who thus repeats what he bequeathed before,
Proclaims his bounty richer than his store.
But let me not upon my love bestow
What is not worth the giving. I do owe
Something to dust: my body's pampered care
Hungry corruption and the worm will share.
That mouldering relic which in earth must lie,
Would prove a gift of horror to thine eye;
With this cast rag of my mortality
Let all my faults and errors buried be.
And as my sere-cloth rots, so may kind fate
Those worst acts of my life incinerate.
He shall in story fill a glorious room,
Whose ashes and whose sins sleep in one tomb.
If now to my cold hearse thou deign to bring
Some melting sighs as thy last offering,
My peaceful exequies are crowned, nor shall
I ask more honour at my funeral.
Thou wilt more richly 'balm me with thy tears
Than all the nard fragrant Arabia bears.
And as the Paphian Queen, by her grief's shower,
Brought up her dead love's spirit in a flower,
So by those precious drops rained from thine eyes,
Out of my dust, O may some Virtue rise!
And like thy better Genius thee attend,
Till thou in my dark period shalt end.
Lastly, my constant truth let me commend
To him thou choosest next to be thy friend.
For (witness all things good!) I would not have
Thy youth and beauty married to my grave;
"T would show thou didst repent the style of wife,
Should'st thou relapse into a single life.
They with preposterous grief the world delude,
Who mourn for their lost mates in solitude;
Since widowhood more strongly doth enforce
The much-lamented lot of their divorce.
Themselves then of their losses guilty are,
Who may, yet will not suffer a repair.
Those were Barbarian wives that did invent
Weeping to death at th' husband's monument.
But in more civil rites she doth approve
Her first, who ventures on a second love;
For else it may be thought if she refrain,
She sped so ill she durst not try again.
Up then, my love, and choose some worthier one,
Who may supply my room when I am gone;
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