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If then at first wise Nature had

Made women either good or bad,

Then some we might hate, and some chuse ;
But since she did them so create,

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That we may neither love nor hate,

Only this rests, all all may use.

If they were good it would be seen;
Good is as visible as green,
And to all eyes itself betrays:

If they were bad they could not last,
Bad doth itself and others waste;
So they deserve nor blame nor praise.

But they are ours as fruits are ours;
He that but tastes, he that devours,

And he that leaves all, doth as well:'
'Chang'd loves are but chang'd sorts of meat,
And when he hath the kernel ate,

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.

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But if this medicine, Love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mix'd of all stuffs, vexing soul or sense,
And of the sun his active vigour borrow,...
Love's not so pure an abstract as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their Muse:
But, as all else, being elemented too,

Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

And yet no greater, but more eminent,
Love by the spring is grown;

As in the firmament

Stars by the sun are not inlarg'd, but shown.
Gentle love-deeds, as blossoms on a bough,

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From love's awakened root do bud out now.

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If, as in water stirr'd, more circles be

Produc'd by one, love such additions take;
Those, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee;

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.

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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,
But am, alas! by being lowly, lower.

I ask no dispensation now

To falsify a tear, a sigh, a vow;
I do not sue from thee to draw
A Non obstante on Nature's law;
These are prerogatives; they inhere
In thee and thine; none should forswear,
Except that he Love's minion were.

Give me thy weakness, make me blind

Both ways, as thou and thine, in eyes and m'nd:
Love! let me never know that this

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,
Because I would not thy first motions trust.
Small towns which stand stiff, till great shot
Enforce them, by war's law condition not.
Such in love's warfare is my case,

I may not article for grace,

Having put Love at last to shew this face.

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This face, by which he could command

And change th' idolatry of any land;
This face, which, wheresoe'er it comes,

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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
To future rebels; if th' unborn

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.

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SOME

CONFINED LOVE.

man, unworthy to be possessor

Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,
Thought his pain and shame would be lesser
If on womankind he might his anger wreak,
And thence a law did grow,

One might but one man know;
But are other creatures so?

Are sun, moon, or stars, by law forbidden

To smile where they list, or lend away their light?
Are birds divorc'd, or are they chidden

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,
And not to seek lands, or not to deal with all?
Or build fair houses, set trees and arbours,

Only to lock up, or else to let them fall?
Good is not good unless

A thousand it possess,

But doth waste with greediness.

THE DREAM.

DEAR Love! for nothing less than thee
Would I have broke this happy Dream:
It was a theme

For reason, much too strong for phantasy,
Therefore thou wak'dst me wisely; yet

My Dream thou brok'st not, but continuedst it.
Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice
To make Dreams truths, and fables histories.
Enter these arms; for since thou thought'st it best
Not to dream all my Dream, let's act the rest.
Volume 11.

D

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10.

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