TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED.
COME, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate, which you wear
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopped there;
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you, that now it is bedtime.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals, As when through flowery meads th' hill's shadows steals.
Off with that wiry coronet, and show
The hairy diadem which on your head doth grow;
Now off with those shoes, and then softly tread
In this Love's hallowed temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Revealed to men: thou, angel, bring'st with thee
A heaven like Mahomet's paradise; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these angels from an evil sprite,
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
License my roving hands and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below,
O my America! my Newfoundland !
My kingdom's safest, when with one man manned.
My mine of precious stones, my empery,
How am I blest in thus discovering thee !
To enter in these bonds is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.
Full nakedness, all joys are due to thee!
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are, like Atlanta's ball, cast in men's views,
That when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,
His earthly soul may court that, not them;
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made,
For laymen are all women thus arrayed;
Themselves are only mystic books, which we
(Whom their imputed grace will dignify)
Must see revealed. Then since that I may know,
As liberally as to thy midwife show
Thyself; cast all, yea, this white linen hence;
There is no penance due to innocence.
To teach thee, I am naked first; why, than,
What need'st thou have more covering than a man?
By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires, which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving1 hopes, by that remorse,
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me,
I calmly beg; but by thy father's wrath,
By all pains which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oaths which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,
Here I unswear, and overswear them thus;
Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.
Temper, O fair love, love's impetuous rage,
Be my true mistress still, not my feigned page;
I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind
Thirst to come back; oh, if thou die before,
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.
Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast read
How roughly he in pieces shivered
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he loved.
Fall ill or good, 't is madness to have proved
1 striving, 1669. 2 means, ibid. 3 mistress, not my feigned page, ibid. 4 The fair, ibid.
Dangers unurged: feed on this flattery,
That absent lovers one in th' other be.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change
Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange
To thyself only; all will spy in thy face
A blushing, womanly, discovering grace.
Richly clothed apes are called apes;
and as soon
Eclipsed, as bright, we call the moon the moon.
Men of France, changeable chameleons,
Spitals of diseases, shops of fashións,
Love's fuellers, and the rightest company
Of players which upon the world's stage be,
Will quickly know thee; and no less, alas ! 1
Th' indifferent Italian, as we pass
His warm land, well content to think thee page,
Will hunt thee with such lust and hideous rage
As Lot's fair guests were vexed. But none of these,
Nor spungy hydroptic Dutch, shall thee displease,
If thou stay here. Oh stay here; for, for thee
England is only a worthy gallery,
To walk in expectation, till from thence
Our greatest King call thee to his presénce.
When I am gone, dream me some happiness,
Nor let thy looks our long-hid love confess;
Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse
Openly love's force; nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnight's startings, crying out, "Oh! oh!
Nurse, oh my love is slain; I saw him go
1 Will too too quickly know thee; and alas, 1669.
O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,
Assailed, fight, taken, stabbed, bleed, fall, and die."
Augur me better chance, except dread Jove
Think it enough for me to have had thy love.
THE heavens rejoice in motion; why should I
Abjure my so much loved variety,
And not with many youth and love1 divide?
Pleasure is none, if not diversified.
The sun, that sitting in the chair of light
Sheds flame into what else soever doth seem bright,
Is not contented at one Sign to inn,
But ends his year and with a new begins.
All things do willingly in change delight,
The fruitful mother of our appetite;
Rivers the clearer and more pleasing are
Where their fair-spreading streams run wide and clear;
And a dead lake, that no strange bark doth greet,
Corrupts itself and what doth live in it.
Let no man tell me such a one is fair,
And worthy all alone my love to share;
Nature in her hath done the liberal part
Of a kind mistress, and employed her art
1 lov'd, 1650, '69.
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