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Yet send me back my heart and eyes,
That I may know and see thy lies,
And may laugh and joy when thou
Art in anguish,
And dost languish

For some one

That will none,

Or prove as false as thou dost now.

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A NOCTURNAL

UPON S. LUCIE'S DAY, BEING THE SHORTEST DAY.

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's, Lucie's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks. The sun is spent, and now his flasks

Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

The world's whole sap is sunk :

The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be

At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am a very dead thing,

In whom Love wrought new alchymy

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For his art did express

A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations and lean emptiness:
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot

Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.

All others from all things draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have; 20
I, by Love's limbeck, am the grave

Of all, that's nothing. Oft' a flood
Have we two wept, and so

Drown'd the whole world, us two: oft' did we grow

To be two chaoses, when he did show

Care to ought else; and often absences

Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)

Of the first nothing the elixir grown:

Were I a man, that I were one

I needs must know, I should prefer,

If I were any beast,

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Some ends, some means; yea plants, yeastones, detest, And love, all, all some properties invest.

If I an ordinary nothing were,

As shadow, a light and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my sun renew,
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun

At this time to the Goat is run

To fetch new lust, and give it you,

Enjoy your summer all,

Since she enjoys her long night's festival:

Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her Vigil and her Eve, since this
Both the year's and the day's deep midnight is.

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WITCHCRAFT BY A PICTURE.

I

FIX mine eye on thine, and there

Pity my Picture burning in thine eye,

My Picture drown'd in a transparent tear,

When I look lower, I espy.

Hadst thou the wicked skill,

By Pictures made and marr'd to kill,

How many ways might'st thou perform thy will?

But now I've drunk thy sweet salt tears,
And tho' thou pour more I'll depart:
My Picture vanished, vanish all fears
That I can be endamag'd by that art.
Tho' thou retain of me

One Picture more, yet that will be,

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Being in thine own heart, from all malice free,

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THE BAIT.

COME, live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks,

There will the river whisp'ring run,
Warm'd by thine eyes more than the sun;
And there th' inamcur'd fish will play,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee than thou him.

If thou to be so seen art loth

By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both;
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not there light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset
With strangling snare or winding net:

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Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,
Or curious traitors sleave silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes:

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own Bait;
That fish that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas! is wiser far than I.

THE APPARITION.

WHEN by thy scorn, O, Murd'ress! I am dead,

And thou shalt think thee free

Of all solicitation from me,

Then shall my Ghost come to thy bed,

And thee, feign'd Vestal, in worse arms shall see;
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,

And he, whose thou art, being tir'd before,
Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think
Thou call'st for more,

And in a false sleep even from thee shrink.

And then, poor aspin Wretch! neglected, thou,
Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat, wilt lie,
A verier Ghost than I.

What I will say I will not tell thee now,

Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I'd rather thou shouldst painfully repent

Than by my threat'nings rest still innocent.

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