JAMES GRAHAME, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. 1612-1650. MY DEAR AND ONLY LOVE, I PRAY. PART FIRST. My dear and only love I pray Which virtuous souls abhor, Like Alexander I will reign, And I will reign alone; My thoughts shall evermore disdain He either fears his fate too much, That puts it not unto the touch, But I must rule and govern still, But 'gainst my battery if I find Or in the empire of thy heart, And dares to vie with me; Or if committees thou erect, And goes on such a score, But if thou wilt be constant then, I'll crown and deck thee all with bays, And love thee evermore. PART SECOND. [The authenticity of the second part of this beautiful poem has been doubted. I have omitted one stanza, the text of which seems to me hopelessly corrupt.] My dear and only love take heed, Lest thou thyself expose, And let all longing lovers feed Upon such looks as those. A marble wall then build about, But if thou let thy heart fly out, Let not their oaths, like vollies shot, Make any breach at all; Nor smoothness of their language plot Which way to scale the wall; Nor balls of wild-fire love consume The shrine which I adore; For if such smoke about thee fume, I think thy virtues be too strong Which victualled by my love so long, But if thou turn a common-wealth For if by fraud, or by consent, Nor march by tuck of drum; I'll do with thee as Nero did, Not only all relief forbid, But to a hill retire, And scorn to shed a tear to see Thy spirit grown so poor; But smiling, sing until I die, I'll never love thee more. Yet for the love I bare thee once, A monument of marble-stone May pity and deplore My case, and read the reason why The golden laws of love shall be A true and constant tongue. Then shall thy heart be set by mine, But mine was true, so was not thine, For as the waves with every wind, My heart shall with the sun be fixed, And thine shall with the moon be mixed, Thy beauty shined at first most bright, That ever I found thy love so light, As doth the turtle chaste and true, And daily mourns for his adieu, And ne'er renews her mate; So though thy faith was never fast, Which grieves me wondrous sore, Yet I shall live in love so chaste, That I shall love no more. And when all gallants ride about Thou traitorous and untrue; And when that tracing goddess Fame And how in odds our love was such Thou loved too many, and I too much, |