VIII.

When thy inconsiderate hand

Flings ope this casement, with my trembling name,

To look on one whose wit or land

New battery to thy heart may frame,

Then think this name alive, and that thou thus
In it offend'st my genius.

IX.

And when thy melted maid,

Corrupted by thy lover's gold or page,
His letter at thy pillow' hath laid,
Dispute thou it, and tame thy rage.
If thou to him beginn'st to thaw for this,
May my name step in and hide his..

To an overt act, and that thou write again,
In superscribing my name flow

Into thy fancy from the pen,

So in forgetting thou rememb'rest right,
And unaware to me shalt write.

XI.

But glass and lines must be

No means our firm substantial love to keep;
Near death inflicts this lethargy,

And thus I murmur in my sleep:

Impute this idle talk to that I go,

For dying men talk often so.

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66

TWICKNAM GARDEN.

BLASTED with sighs, and surrounded with tears,
Hither I come to seek the spring,

And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,
Receive such balm as else cures every thing:

But, O! self-traitor, I do bring

The spider Love, which transubstantiates all,
And can convert manna to gall;

And that this place may thoroughly be thought
True Paradise, I have the serpent brought.

'Twere wholesomer for me that winter did Benight the glory of this place,

And that a grave frost did forbid

These trees to laugh and mock me to my face:
But since I cannot this disgrace

Endure, nor leave this garden, Love, let me
Some senseless piece of this place be:
Make me a mandrake, so I may grow here,
Or a stone fountain weeping out my year.

Hither with crystal vials, Lovers! come,
And take my tears, which are love's wine,
And try your mistress' tears at home,
For all are false that taste not just like mine:
Alas! hearts do not in eyes shine,

10

20

Nor can you more judge woman's thoughts by tears,
Than by her shadow what she wears.

O perverse sex! where none is true but she,
Who's therefore true, because her truth kills me. 27

VALEDICTION TO HIS BOOK.

I'LL tell thee now (dear Love) what thou shalt do
To anger Destiny, as she doth us;

How I shall stay, tho' she eloigne me thus,
And how posterity shall know it too;

How thine may out-endure

Sybil's glory, and obscure

Her who from Pindar could allure,

And her thro' whose help Lucan is not lame,

And her whose book (they say) Homer did find and

name.

Study our manuscripts, those myriads

Of letters which have past 'twixt thee and me;
Thence write our annals, and in them will be,
To all whom love's subliming fire invades,
Rule and example found:

There the faith of any ground

No schismatic will dare to wound,

That sees how Love this grace to us affords,

To make, to keep, to use, to be, these his records.

This Book, as long liv'd as the elements,
Or as the world's form, this all-grav'd tomb,
In cypher writ, or new-made idiom;

We for Love's clergy only' are instruments.
When this Book is made thus,

Should again the ravenous

Vandals and Goths invade us,

Learning were safe in this our universe,

20

Schools might learn sciences, spheres music, angels

Here loves divine (since all divinity

Is love or wonder) may find all they seek,
Whether abstracted spiritual love they like,
Their souls exhal'd with what they do not see,
Or loath so to amuse

Faith's infirmities, they chuse

Something which they may see and use;

[verse.

For tho' mind be the heaven where Love doth sit,
Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it.

Here, more than in their books, may lawyers find, Both by what titles mistresses are ours,

And how Prerogative these states devours,

30

Transferr'd from Love himself to womandkind;

40

Who, tho' from heart and eyes

They exact great subsidies,

Forsake him who on them relies,

And for the cause honour or conscience give;
Chimeras vain as they or their prerogative.

Here statesmen (or of them they which can read)

May of their occupation find the grounds,
Love and their art alike it deadly wounds,
If to consider what 't is one proceed;
In both they do excel

Who the present govern well,

Whose weakness none doth or dares tell.

In this thy Book such will there something see,
As in the Bible some can find out alchymy.

Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I'll study thee,
As he removes far off that great heights take :
How great love is, presence best trial makes,
But absence tries how long this love will be..
To take a latitude,

Sun or stars are fitliest view'd:

At their brightest; but to conclude

Of longitudes, what other way have we

50

60

But to mark when and where the dark eclipses be? 63

COMMUNITY.

GOOD

we must love, and must håte ill,

For ill is ill, and good good still:

But there are things indifferent,
Which we may neither hate nor love,
But one and then another prove,
As we shall find our fancy bent..