THE PROHIBITION.

TAKE heed of loving me,

At least remember, I forbade it thee;
Not that I shall repair my unthrifty waste1
Of breath and blood upon thy sighs and tears,
By being to me then that which thou wast; 2
But so great joy our life at once outwears:
Then, lest thy love by my death frustrate be,
If thou love me, take heed of loving me.

Take heed of hating me,

Or too much triumph in the victory;
Not that I shall be mine own officer
And hate with hate again retaliate,
But thou wilt lose the style of conqueror
If I, thy conquest, perish by thy hate :
Then, lest my being nothing lessen thee,
If thou hate me, take heed of hating me.

Yet love and hate me too,

So these extremes shall ne'er their office do ; Love me, that I may die the gentler way; Hate me, because thy love is too great for me; Or let these two themselves, not me, decay; So shall I live thy stay, not triumph be:

1 shall repay in unthrifty a waste, 1669. 2 By being to thee then what to me thou wast.

3 stage.

Lest thou thy love and hate and me undo,
To let me live, oh love and hate me too.1

THE EXPIRATION.

So, so,2 break off this last lamenting kiss,

Which sucks two souls and vapours both away: Turn, thou ghost, that way, and let me turn this, And let ourselves benight our happiest day; We ask none leave to love, nor will we owe Any so cheap a death, as saying, Go.

Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee, Ease me with death, by bidding me go too; Oh if it have, let my word work on me,

And a just office on a murderer do, Except it be too late to kill me so,

Being double-dead, going, and bidding go.

THE COMPUTATION.

FOR the first twenty years since yesterday,
I scarce believed thou could'st be gone away;

For forty more, I fed on favours past,

And forty, on hopes that thou would'st they might last;

1 Then lest thou thy love hate, and me thou undo,

Oh let me live, yet love and hate me too, 1635, '39, '49, '54.
Lest thou thy love, and hate, and me thou undo,

Oh let me live, yet love and hate me too, 1669.
2 So, go, ibid. 3 Or. 4 From, 1669.
5 my.

Tears drowned one hundred, and sighs blew out two;

A thousand, I did neither think nor do, Or not divide,1 all being one thought of you,

2

Or in a thousand more forgot that too.

Yet call not this long life; but think that I
Am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die?

THE PARADOX.3

No lover saith, I love, nor any other
Can judge a perfect lover;

He thinks that else none can or will agree
That any loves but he :

I cannot say I loved, for who can say
He was killed yesterday?

Love, with excess of heat, more young than old,
Death, kills with too much cold;

We die but once, and who loved last did die ;
He that saith twice doth lie;

For, though he seem to move and stir awhile,
It doth the sense beguile.

Such life is like the light which bideth yet,
When the life's light is set,

Or like the heat which fire in solid matter
Leaves behind two hours after.

1 deemed, 1635, '39, '49, '54. 2 forget, 1669.
3 Without title in the edition of 1633.

Once I love and died, and am now become Mine epitaph and tomb.

Here dead men speak their last, and so do I; Love-slain, lo, here I die.

SONG.

1635.

SOUL's joy, now I am gone,

And you alone,

(Which cannot be,

Since I must leave myself with thee,

And carry thee with me,)

Yet when unto our eyes
Absence denies

Each other's sight,

And makes to us a constant night,
When others change to light,
Oh give no way to grief,
But let belief

Of mutual love,

This wonder to the vulgar prove,
Our bodies, not we, move.

Let not thy wit beweep

Words, but sense deep;

For when we miss

By distance our hopes-joining bliss,

Even then our souls shall kiss:
Fools have no means to meet,
But by their feet;

Why should our clay

Over our spirits so much sway,
To tie us to that way?

Oh give no way to grief,

But let belief

Of mutual love,

This wonder to the vulgar prove,
Our bodies, not we, move.

FAREWELL TO LOVE.

1635.

WHILST, yet to prove,

I thought there was some deity in love,
So did I reverence and gave

Worship, as atheists, at their dying hour,
Call, what they cannot name, an unknown power;
As ignorantly did I crave :

Thus when

Things not yet known are coveted by men,
Our desires give them fashiön, and so,
As they wax lesser, fall, as they size, grow.

But from late fair

His Highness, sitting in a golden chair,