MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

SONGS AND SONNETS.

THE FLEA.

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,1
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that2 this cannot be said

3

A sin, nor shame, nor loss 3 of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas! is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea,5 more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is ;
Though parents grudge, and you, we 're met
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not, to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

1 Me it sucked first, and now it sucks thee, 1669. 2 Confess it, ibid.

3 or shame, or loss, ibid.

4 could, ibid.

5

nay, ibid.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop1 which it sucked from thee?

Yet thou triumph'st and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now;
'T is true; then learn how false fears be:
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

THE GOOD-MORROW.

I WONDER, by my troth, what thou and I
Did till we loved; were we not weaned till then,
But sucked on country pleasures childishly??
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?
'T was so; but this, all pleasures fancies be:4

If ever any beauty I did see

Which I desired and got, 't was but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

1 blood, 1669. 2 childish pleasures sillily, ibid.
3 slumbered, ibid. 4 but as all pleasures fancies be, ibid.

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds1 have shown,
Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better 2 hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or 3 thou and I
Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.1

SONG.

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years 5 are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

1 to other worlds our world, 1669. 2 fitter. 3 both.

just alike in all, none of these loves can die.
past, 1669. 6 go, ibid.

4 Love

5 times

Till age snow white hairs on thee;
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
Nowhere

Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not: I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true when you met her,
And last till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two or three.

WOMAN'S CONSTANCY.

Now thou hast loved 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 oaths made in reverential fear

Of Love and his wrath, any may forswear?

1 she, 1669.

Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,

Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?
Or, your own end to justify,

For having purposed change and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true?
Vain lunatic, against these scapes I could
Dispute and conquer, if I would;
Which I abstain to do,

For by to-morrow I may think so too.

THE UNDERTAKING.1

I HAVE done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now t' impart
The skill of specular stone,

When he which can have learned the art
To cut it, can find none.

So, if I now should utter this,

Others (because no more
Such stuff to work upon there is)

Would love but as before:

1 Without title in 1633.