If then at first wise Nature had Made women either good or bad, Then some we might hate, and some chuse ; That we may neither love nor hate, Only this rests, all all may use. If they were good it would be seen; If they were bad they could not last, But they are ours as fruits are ours; And he that leaves all, doth as well:' Who doth not fling away the shell? LOVE'S GROWTH. I SCARCE believe my love to be so pure As I had thought it was, Because it doth endure Vicissitude and season as the grass. Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore My love was infinite, if spring make 't more. 20 24 But if this medicine, Love, which cures all sorrow Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do. And yet no greater, but more eminent, As in the firmament Stars by the sun are not inlarg'd, but shown. From love's awakened root do bud out now. 20 If, as in water stirr'd, more circles be Produc'd by one, love such additions take; And tho' each spring do add to love new heat, As princes do in times of action get New taxes, and remit them not in peace, No winter shall abate this spring's encrease. 28 LOVE'S EXCHANGE. LOVE! any devil else but you Would for a giv'n soul give something too. At court your fellows every day Give th' art of rhyming, huntmanship, or play, For them, which were their own before; Only I've nothing which gave more, I ask no dispensation now To falsify a tear, a sigh, a vow; Give me thy weakness, make me blind Both ways, as thou and thine, in eyes and m'nd: Is love, or that love childish is: Let me not know that others know That she knows my pains, lest that so A tender shame make me mine own new woe. If thou give nothing, yet thou 'rt just, I may not article for grace, Having put Love at last to shew this face. 20 This face, by which he could command And change th' idolatry of any land; 30 Can call vow'd men from cloysters, dead from tombs, And melt both poles at once, and store Deserts with cities, and make more Mines in the earth than quarries were before. For this love is inrag'd with me, Yet kills not. If I must example be Must learn, by my being cut up and torn, Kill and dissect me, Love! for this Torture against thine own end is: Rack'd carcasses make ill anatomies. 40 42 SOME CONFINED LOVE. man, unworthy to be possessor Of old or new love, himself being false or weak, One might but one man know; Are sun, moon, or stars, by law forbidden To smile where they list, or lend away their light? If they leave their mate, or lie abroad all night? Beasts do no jointures lose Tho' they new lovers choose; But we are made worse than those. Whoe'er rigg'd fair ships to lie in harbours, Only to lock up, or else to let them fall? A thousand it possess, But doth waste with greediness. THE DREAM. DEAR Love! for nothing less than thee For reason, much too strong for phantasy, My Dream thou brok'st not, but continuedst it. D 21 10. |