THE UNDERTAKING. I HAVE done one braver thing And yet a braver thence doth spring, It were but madness now t' impart The skill of specular stone, When he which can have learn'd 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) But he who loveliness within If, as I have, you also do Virtue in woman see, And dare love that, and say so too, And if this love, tho' placed so, From prophane men you hide, Then you have done a braver thing And a braver thence will spring, THE SUN RISING. Busy old fool! unruly Sun! Why dost thou thus Thro' windows and thro' curtains look on us? Sawcy pedantic Wretch! go, chide Late school-boys, or sowre 'prentices; Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride; Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. 10 Thy beams so reverend and strong, Dost thou not think I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, If her eyes have not blinded thine, Be where thou left them, or lie here with me : She 's all states, and all princes I, Princes do but play us; compar'd to this In that the world 's contracted thus: Thine age asks ease; and since thy duties be THE INDIFFERENT. 20 30 Her whom abundance m elts, 'and her whom want Her who loves loneness best, and her who sports and plays; Her whom the country form'd, and whom the town: Her who believes, and her who tries; Her who still weeps with spungy eyes, And her who is dry cork, and never cries: If thou find'st one let me know, Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not; I would not go, Tho' at next door we might meet. Tho' she were true when you met her, Yet she Will be False ere I come to two or three. 20 27 WOMAN'S CONSTANCY. Now thou hast lov'd me one whole day, To-morrow when thou leav'st what wilt thou say? We are not just those persons which we were? Or that oaths, made in reverential fear Of love and his wrath, any may forswear? Or, as true deaths true marriages untie, So lovers' contracts, images of those, Bind but till Sleep, Death's image, them unloose? 10 Or, your own end to justify For having purpos'd change and falsehood, you Can have no way but falsehood to be true? Vain lunatic! against these scapes I could Which I abstain to do, For by to-morrow I may think so too. 17 THE UNDERTAKING. I HAVE done one braver thing And yet a braver thence doth spring, It were but madness now t'impart The skill of specular stone, When he which can have learn'd 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. But he who loveliness within If, as I have, you also do Virtue in woman see, And dare love that, and say so too, And forget the he and she; |