Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give;

My brazen medals unto them which live
In want of bread; to them which pass among
All foreigners, mine English tongue;

Thou, Love, by making me love one
Who thinks her friendship a fit portion
For younger lovers, dost my gifts1 thus disproportion.

Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo
The world by dying, because Love dies too:
Then all your beauties will be no more worth
Than gold in mines where none doth draw it forth,
And all your graces no more use shall have

Than a sundial in a grave.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me Love her who doth neglect both me and thee, To invent and practice this one way to annihilate all three.2

THE FUNERAL.

WHOEVER Comes to shroud me, do not harm

Nor question much

That subtile wreath of hair which crowns my arm;

The mystery, the sign, you must not touch,

For 't is my outward soul,

Viceroy to that which, unto heaven being gone,

Will leave this to control

3

And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

1 gift, 1639, '49, '54. 2 annihilate thee, 1669. 3 of hair about mine arm, ibid.

For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall
Through every part,

Can tie those parts and make me one of all,

Those hairs which upward grew, and strength and art Have from a better brain,

Can better do it; except she meant that I

By this should know my pain,

As prisoners then are manacled, when they are condemned to die.

Whate'er she meant by it, bury it by 2 me;
For since I am

Love's martyr, it might breed idolatry
If into other hands these relics came.
As 't was humility

To afford to it all that a soul can do,
So 't is some bravery,

That, since you would have none of me, I bury some

of you.

THE BLOSSOM.

LITTLE think'st thou, poor flower,

Whom I have watched six or seven days,
And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour
Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise,
And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough,
Little think'st thou

1 grow, 1649, '54, '69. 2 with.

That it will freeze anon, and that I shall
To-morrow find thee fallen, or not at all.

Little think'st thou, poor heart,

That labours1 yet to nestle thee,
And think'st by hovering here to get a part
In a forbidden or forbidding tree,

And hop'st her stiffness by long siege to bow,
Little think'st thou,

That thou to-morrow, ere that 2 sun doth wake, Must with this sun and me a journey take.

But thou, which lov'st to be

Subtile to plague thyself, wilt say, Alas! if you must go, what 's that to me? Here lies my business, and here I will stay: You go to friends whose love and means present Various content

To your eyes, ears, and taste, and every part; If then your body go, what need your heart?

Well, then stay here: but know,

When thou hast stayed and done thy most, A naked thinking heart, that makes no show, Is to a woman but a kind of ghost;

How shall she know my heart, or, having none, Know thee for one?

Practice may make her know some other part, But take my word, she doth not know a heart.

1 labourest. 2 the. 3 will, 1669.

Meet me at London, then,

Twenty days hence, and thou shalt see
Me fresher and more fat, by being with men,
Than if I had stayed still with her and thee.
For God's sake, if you can, be you so too;
I will give you

There to another friend, whom we shall find
As glad to have my body as my mind.

THE PRIMROSE.1

UPON this primrose hill,

Where if Heaven would distil

A shower of rain, each several drop might go.
To his own primrose, and grow manna so;
And where their form and their infinity
Make a terrestrial galaxy,

As the small stars do in the sky,

I walk to find a true love, and I see
That 't is not a mere woman that is she,
But must or more or less than woman be.

Yet know I not which flower

I wish; a six, or four;

For should my true-love less than woman be, She were scarce anything; and then, should she

1 Later editions add, "Being at Montgomery Castle, upon the hill on which it is situate."

Be more than woman, she would get above
All thought of sex and think to move

My heart to study her, and not 1 to love; Both these were monsters; since there must reside

Falsehood in woman, I could more abide
She were by art, than nature falsified.

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 half ten
Belongs unto each woman, then

Each woman may take half us men,
Or, if this will not serve their 2 turn, since all
Numbers are odd or even, and they fall
First into this 4 five, women may take us all.

Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learned that woman-head,

To be to more than one a bed,)

1 to study her, not, 1635, '39. 2 the, 1649, '54, '69. 3 since. 4 into five.